


Love Is Blind (and darling, right now, I can't see you)

by purpledaisy



Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Fake/Pretend Relationship, M/M, Mutual Pining, Recreational Drug Use, Sexual Content
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-18
Updated: 2015-04-18
Packaged: 2018-03-23 03:16:34
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 35,201
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3752401
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/purpledaisy/pseuds/purpledaisy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Harry had squeezed his eyes shut pretending it was real for the moment, that Zayn was actually his. Still, it doesn’t matter if the lights flashing behind his eyelids were the brightest they’d ever been because Zayn must have had his eyes wide open just waiting for it to be over.<br/>-<br/>Written for the prompt: pretend boyfriends</p>
            </blockquote>





	Love Is Blind (and darling, right now, I can't see you)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [postscript](https://archiveofourown.org/users/postscript/gifts).



> I took your "Pretend boyfriends. PRETENNDNDS BOYFHNEIRNDS" prompt + happy fic + hair pulling and ended up with this. I hope it's something like what you wanted! (Also with a side of being wildly inspired by that rumor of Zayn wearing Harry's ring as a necklace.)
> 
> Title from "I Won't Mind"

_Fuck._

Zayn isn’t sure if it’s an appropriate first thought for waking up on a Saturday. Saturdays usually mean no work and sleeping longer than acceptable but _fuck_ and 8:16 a.m. are hand in hand for Zayn right then. It takes him a second to remember why _fuck_ is the first word to float in his mind but then the memories of the night before start to come back in a hazy wave.

-

They started at the club Liam was playing a set at— _Fire Haze_ or maybe it was _Flame Haze._ Something with _Haze_ , Zayn knew that much. It's becoming ordinary to spend their nights wherever Liam was playing.

There were shots at the bar—Niall ordering three at a time for each of them as if _that_ didn’t always end badly. Then, there was Zayn pretending to get lost instead of following Louis to the dance floor and laughing as Harry flailed around nearby like a grinning noodle. Zayn and Niall grabbed an empty booth long enough to chat with whoever happened to pass before Niall got dragged off to do more shots with some of his friends from work.

Towards the end of the night, seemingly out of nowhere, Conor, Zayn's ex of nearly two years, popped up and interrupted him as he was debating tracking down his roommates or just leaving. _Conor_ , who started being a pretentious prick, as usual, from the second he slid in the dimly lit corner booth across from Zayn; spewing rude comments about other people in the club, about the drinks and his general disdain with the _quality_ of the place.

As Zayn was ready to tell him to fuck off and leave if he hated it so much, Conor started raving about his new girlfriend instead. Melanie who, evidently, is just _absolutely lovely_ and understands Conor in _so_ many ways. [He doesn’t add, _in ways you never could_ but Zayn still hears it all the same.]

Tipsy and exhausted from his week, Zayn could not have cared less about anything Conor had to say. Oblivious to his passive interest, as always, Conor pulled Melanie over to the booth after going on about her—a little blonde with a nose ring and shiny blood red lips. Zayn remembers squinting at her lips because, _was that actual blood?_ He has make-up adventurers for sisters but he’d never seen any lip colors quite like hers.

The girl was nice enough and shook Zayn’s hand from across the table. If he wasn’t a complete idiot, he would have told them to have a good night right then—left it at that.

But then, Conor had gone and asked, _how are you, Zayners, seeing anyone yet?_

He’d been looking at Zayn with something like pity. Something like he still thought Zayn was heartbroken over him two years after the fact. [Blatantly disregarding how many times Zayn's reminded him how much time has passed, how happy he is and how he’d been the one to walk away in the first place. He knows the argument by heart because its the same each time he sees Conor. It’s been nearly a year since he’s last had to deal with him in person.]

Something about the alcohol coursing through his veins and the expectant look on Conor and his girlfriend’s faces had the words, _I’m really happy, man. Been with my boyfriend for a bit now. It’s good_ , sliding from his lips as smooth as the shots had gone down earlier.

It was a nice sentiment and there was nothing wrong with it except for Zayn being absolutely and completely single.

And from there, things had really just spun out of control. Somehow, Conor asked to meet his boyfriend and Zayn’s eyes glazed over, his mouth on auto-pilot, _He’s busy tonight,_ followed by, _Come meet him some other time, yeah? You’d really like him, man._

[Now, he thinks, maybe, the words came out so easily because he’s truly an idiot and thought he could avoid Conor for, foreseeably, ever. It is a big city after all.]

Admittedly, Zayn did try to stop the bleeding before it got worse and said he needed to head out.

He stood up from the booth looking around for Harry and found him almost instantly. Pressed in a dark corner with someone against the wall; his hips holding whoever it was still while his lips crashed against theirs. He saw Louis and a girl in the middle of the floor dancing while she looked at him like he’d hung the stars in the sky. Zayn figured they’d both be fine on their own. He grabbed his black leather jacket out of the booth only to find Conor sliding out and saying he and Melanie would walk with him.

Zayn’s first instinct was to run until he remembered he was twenty-three years old so he settled for nodding and leading them out the front door into the chill of the January night.

He remembers making small talk, the words and points blurring together as he lit a cigarette and slotted it between his lips. Zayn kept waiting for Conor and his girl to turn down one of the side streets or up one of the driveways but they stuck by his side.

“Where do you guys live?” he asked just after a stream of exhaled smoke circled his head, paired with a nasty look from Conor who hated the fact Zayn smoked when they were together. Still does, evidently.

He remembers that question clearly because the answer almost had him choking on the remnants of the smoke in his lungs: “New little complex, Sunset Heights.”

Sunset Heights as in the same place where Zayn, Louis and Harry had just moved in a couple of days earlier. Their original apartment flooded the week before and the management just shuffled them to a new complex. [It had almost been better for them—closer to the office for Zayn and university for Harry. Further from the studio for Louis but the complaints had been minimal.]

“Really?” Zayn asked over a cough, taking another drag from his cigarette to hide the increasingly blinding fear of having to introduce Conor to his invisible boyfriend.

“Yeah, up on the third floor, 322.”

 _Fuck_.

His apartment happens to be right next door to 322, which he casually explained while his insides twisted. What a fucking disaster.

He pulled the cigarette from his lips with a shaky hand as they made their way into the parking lot. Zayn trailed behind the couple as they giggled and held each other going up the stairs, his mind racing. Tipsy at best, it was more of a slow race than anything.

“Do you think your boyfriend is already asleep?” Conor asked when they reached the doors near the end of the hallway; door 322 slotted right next to 321.

“Yeah and he’s a light sleeper so I have to be quiet. G’night,” the words came out in a rush as he jammed the key in the lock and slid in his quiet and empty flat; shutting the door behind him without daring to look at Conor or Melanie.

He stood against the wall next to the door trying to catch his breath when he realized his lit cigarette was still in his hand. He snubbed it in a cold cup of tea on the table in the kitchen and ran a hand back through his hair. He made sure to put the cup in the sink before going out on the balcony and stress smoking two more cigarettes to still his shaking hands. [Originally, he’d been cutting down on smoking for the New Year but resolutions were the furthest thing from his mind.] Finally, he found himself calming down enough to attempt to go to bed so he killed the last cigarette against the railing.

His overwhelming sentiment, as he walked to his room and stripped to his pants before sliding between the sheets, was _what a fucking disaster._ And, somehow, the thought had turned simply to _fuck_ in the morning light.

-

Zayn rolls out of bed with the briefest hope of Conor not remembering the conversation--specifically, the boyfriend part. He pulls on a pair of sweats and a black hoodie with the unsettling feeling in his stomach it won’t be forgotten easily.

He notices Louis’ door is open; probably stayed with the girl he was dancing with. He sees Harry’s door closed, one caramel boot tipped over by the door. He’s briefly surprised he didn’t hear their youngest roommate when he came back.

He makes his way to the kitchen with his thoughts still drifting to Conor. One of many annoying things about his relationship with Conor was his ability to remember the things Zayn didn’t want him to. He never remembered things like Zayn’s youngest sister’s name or his favorite Marvel characters. Instead, he had plenty of memory storage to drag up things from the past to make Zayn feel guilty or embarrassed while they were together. A real talent it was.

Zayn realizes he’s clenching his jaw at the thought, grinding his teeth the way his mom warned him not to, and tries to relax. He pulls out a bowl from the cupboard filling it with cereal and milk before plopping down on a chair at the table and starting to eat.

He glances up when he hears the telltale click of a door opening followed by a shirtless body he doesn’t recognize backing out of Harry’s room--a broad back with almost too many thick muscles, an unnatural tan for the time of year and unusually blonde hair. The guy pulls a t-shirt over his head after the door clicks shut again, still backing away from it slowly as he pulls the shirt down.

The thing with Harry and alcohol is he often invites people back to the apartment after a night out. [Louis calls them his sex strays though they all know he doesn’t sleep with everyone he brings home. Fair play to the ones he does sleep with—everyone definitely hears it.]

There are two types of people Harry brings home, they’ve learned in time. The first are the ones who cling to Harry like greedy magnets wanting to harness some of his energy for themselves. The second are the ones who want one night with the lanky boy with the long hair and mismatched ink on his skin—the floppy noodle with the lazy smiles and wide green eyes.

Zayn sympathizes with the first ones, he recognizes the feeling, but he hates the second kind. The kind to back out of Harry’s room before they get a chance to see his eyes in the morning.

He knows what kind the blonde guy is when he jumps at seeing Zayn sitting at the table. Zayn raises his eyebrows at him, _surprise,_ over a bite of cereal. The second type always tries to sneak out unnoticed.

“Shit, you scared me, man,” the blonde guy says leaning down to adjust his shoe still keeping his distance. Zayn spoons more cereal into his mouth without dropping his glare. He briefly wonders if his muscles are as fake as his tan as he chews.

The guy swallows once before sliding his phone out of his pocket and answering over a whisper, _Hey. Yeah, parking lot. Be there in two._

“My friend,” he shrugs as an explanation when he hangs up and Zayn doesn’t care enough to respond. He makes sure not to take his eyes off of him, chasing him with his silent gaze out the front door. [Harry tells him it’s not a nice thing to do and he actually prefers it when he doesn’t have to talk to them in the mornings; Louis says he thinks it makes people want to come back and rob them. It still doesn’t stop Zayn from making the ones that sneak out feel like their doing something wrong.]

If Zayn slept with Harry, he would never sneak out and—well, that’s not what he’s supposed to be thinking about. He shakes his head and tries to relax his glare before, as his dad always says, it gets stuck on his face permanently.

++

Suffocated.

Is that the feeling? Harry can’t quite find the right word as he blinks awake under his pillow. He pulls his face out from underneath it wiping the drool from the corner of his mouth. He has a habit of ending up under his pillow and it’s not a pleasant way to wake up.

He adjusts his head back on top of the pillow as he gets the first wind of his hangover in the form of a head rush.

He twists his neck to the side to check the bed is empty beside him before turning back to look up at the ceiling. He rubs a hand over his face as he tries to remember the guy from the night before, _what the fuck was his name, again?_

When he brings people home he doesn’t always know whether they’ll be around in the morning. He kind of prefers the emptiness waking up as opposed to having to politely ask someone to leave before they get their hopes up.

It’s not that he doesn’t wish for someone to wake up to in the mornings. There have always been the people who stay until the morning but then they look at him with expectant eyes—wanting something more from him. The problem has always been his unwillingness to offer them _more_. He’s yet to find someone he actually wants to _ask_ to stay.

He finds himself smiling a little, then. He’s all good for letting someone lay him out and take him apart with their fingers and mouth before returning the favor but he doesn’t want to share his life with them. He knows he’s got it a bit backwards; sex is supposed to be more intimate than eating breakfast together in the morning but it’s just the way he operates. He files his backwards mentality under ‘things to work on’ as he rolls out of bed and shuffles to the bathroom.

While he brushes his teeth he tries to remember when the guy had left, _maybe his name was Michael_ , or if he’d been awake for that part. [Zayn always tells him a bomb could drop on the apartment and Harry would still sleep through it.]

The thing is, Harry likes people and he hates to be alone. He doesn’t end up sleeping with everyone he invites back because sometimes he just likes to hear their stories and learn their weird habits for a night. Sometimes he likes to fuck and be fucked. Other times he just likes to fall asleep knowing someone else is there with him.

Louis called Harry a lost puppy and in a lot of ways it may have been true. He originally met Lou by following him home from a club a couple of years ago, when Louis was a senior. He had glared at him over a cigarette in front of his door demanding what he wanted and Harry, a sophomore, just said he didn’t want to be alone that night, just wanted to hang out.

He rolls through other names in his mind for the guy who had been there last night but comes up empty. He’s never good with names especially not after Niall gives him three shots at a time at the bar.

He doesn’t bother to pull on anything besides clean briefs before padding towards the kitchen.

Harry thought the guy from last night had been kind of pretty in the darkness of the club, blonde hair and blue eyes. He’d had big hands, easily held Harry’s wrists together over his head as he fucked him—he remembers that for sure. As for what _kind_ of pretty—he couldn’t pick. He was pretty in the way he was tanned and toned but kind of bulky in something reminiscent of his sister’s Ken doll from when they were little.

He wasn’t _Zayn_ pretty. Zayn--perched at their kitchen table, surrounded by his books and Harry’s papers, eating cereal. Zayn with his wiry strength and broad shoulders, delicate eyelashes, strong jawline softened by stubble and the kind of cheekbones—Harry really shouldn’t think so intensely about his best friend.

“Morning,” Zayn raises his spoon at him after swallowing. Another pretty thing about Zayn, if anyone ever asked, is the way he swallows before speaking. Louis had recently told Harry _he_ ate like a toddler and he’d dribbled water all over himself while trying to dispute the claim.

“Hi,” Harry scratches absently at his side as he heads for the cupboard.

“Good night, babe?” Zayn follows him with his gaze. Harry glances back to meet his hazel eyes, wonders how many poems someone could write based off of _just_ his eyes. Not in a creepy way, he’s pretty sure.

“What’d you hear?” he asks over a poorly concealed smirk.

“Nothing this time. Just saw orange boy coming out of your room this morning.”

“Orange boy?”

“Check your sheets, Haz. I’ll bet money there’s fake tanner all over them.”

“Fuck. You know, it’s always so dark in the clubs, I never catch the orange tone until it’s too late.”

Zayn barks out a laugh and rolls his eyes turning back to his breakfast. Harry pours cereal in his own bowl and grabs a banana sitting at the table right next to Zayn, teases him for being up so early and asks him about his night. They’d all kind of lost each other after they started drinking. It tends to happen to them a lot.

“It was alright,” he shrugs, “Except for—“

Knocking on the door cuts him off and they both turn their heads at the sound.

“Who do we know that knocks?” Harry pours milk over his cereal as Zayn gets up heading for the door. He watches him walk away for a moment—his graceful saunter—before staring to eat.

“Oh, shit, hi,” Zayn says pulling the door open halfway and standing in the small space it creates.

Harry can see his back but can’t see beyond him to whoever is on the other side. He tries to lean out of his chair to see, noticing the way Zayn’s shoulders tense even under his sweatshirt. He notices a lot of things about Zayn. Always has.

The voice on the other side is deep and a little rough, a good phone sex voice, probably.

“You said to come over this morning?”

“Did I?” Zayn tightens his hold on the door and Harry leans further trying to see, tilting the chair up on two legs in the process.

“You remember, yeah? I introduced you to Melanie and then you said to come over in the morning?”

“Right but I think I said come over in general not like _this_ morning.”

Harry nearly chokes on his banana because, _shit_ , this is getting awkward and he’s not even involved. Harry suffers from third degree embarrassment when he’s not too busy embarrassing himself.

“Zayners, you totally said this morning.” _Zayners?_ Harry rolls his eyes. “You said you wanted to introduce me to your boyfriend because he wasn’t there last night.”

Harry leans too far at that moment and the chair slips right from underneath him leaving him sprawled on the floor, banana still firmly in his grip.

“Oh, right, yeah, come in,” Zayn pushes open the door fully as Harry scrambles to get back in his chair.

Zayn doesn’t have a boyfriend, is Harry’s first thought. There’s no way. Zayn tells Harry, like, everything. Maybe he tells Louis more things because they’ve known each other longer but a boyfriend seems like something Harry would definitely know. Not to mention he spends all of his free time with Zayn so whoever the boyfriend is he must be pretty okay with sharing.

Harry’s eyebrows pull together as he starts shoveling cereal into his mouth quickly, watching the guy walk in. He’s definitely not Zayn pretty: as tall as Zayn, yeah, but with short brown hair and a fucking polo shirt to go with his jeans. Very church boy chic, Harry thinks. His eyes don’t look very kind. Harry might be too far away to see his eyes _clearly_ but he just _knows._

“Man, Zayners, it’s like you weren’t even there,” the guys chuckles.

Harry doesn’t notice his chewing has gotten more aggressive at the nickname until his jaw starts to ache as he puts another spoonful of cereal in his mouth. He realizes he’s probably about to meet Zayn’s mysterious boyfriend too and he shoves even more in his mouth until his cheeks are just about bulging. His mom has warned him against anger eating but that is another problem to file away for a later date.

“No, dude. I was definitely there. Drunk, yes, but there.” Zayn says and Harry wants to stand up and start clapping. He doesn’t like the dude looking at Zayn like he’s a sad baby animal especially when Zayn is anything but.

“I could tell you were drunk, always can,” the guy reaches to touch Zayn’s arm and more cereal finds it’s way to Harry’s mouth as he rolls his eyes, “Anyways, where’s the guy?”

“The guy?”

“Boyfriend. Are you even sober yet?”

His voice is kind of loud for this early in the morning, Harry decides. Not kind eyes, _Zayners_ and a loud voice; he doesn’t like him already.

“Right.”

Harry’s head snaps up from intensely studying the grooves in the table sensing Zayn’s hesitation. He watches as Zayn starts back pedaling towards where Harry’s sitting and he glances back just in case the boyfriend is standing in the kitchen. Maybe he climbed through the window or something.

“This is him. Harry,” he tries not to jump when Zayn slips his arm around his shoulders and looks down at him with a gaze a little bit fond and a lot pleading, “my boyfriend.”

Harry chokes then, like, cannot remember how to speak, cereal halfway down his throat, full on spluttering, choking.

“You okay, babe?” Zayn grips his shoulder while Harry tries to catch his breath, wiping the back of his hand across his mouth.

“Good, _babe_ ,” he squints his eyes up at Zayn before standing and going around to the front of the table.

“Hi, I’m Harry, uh, Zayn’s boyfriend,” he offers his biggest smile along with his hand to church boy chic with the loud voice. Harry hardly ever feels self conscious walking around in just his black briefs and it’s the same when the guy rakes his eyes over his body before gripping his hand. “It’s lovely to meet you.”

“You too. I’m Conor,” he smiles and drops Harry’s hand, “I’m sure you’ve heard all about me.”

Harry wants to roll his eyes at the bitter entitlement but drops back to stand by Zayn, throwing a heavy arm around his shoulders, “Sure, yeah, Conor.”

“Remember, he’s my friend from school?” Zayn reaches across to Harry’s hip, holding him in place next to him. If Harry gets chills along his bare skin at Zayn’s touch, no one needs to know.

“Yep, Conor,” Harry repeats with a grin and a nod like he’s pulling a story from the recesses of his memory.

“More than a friend,” Conor laughs wiggling his eyebrows at Zayn and Harry hates him then, too.

“Yep, heard the story already, bud,” Harry says holding onto Zayn tighter when he feels him dig his fingertips into his hip.

“Sure you did,” he barks out a laugh that nearly makes Harry’s lip curl, “You look familiar, Harry. I feel like I saw you at the club last night.”

Before Harry can tell him he probably did, Zayn talks over him, “Nope, I told you, he was here.”

“I was? I was,” Harry repeats the phrase more forcefully the second time hoping the initial questioning one would be, somehow, erased.

“You were, love,” Zayn looks over at him with a smile, not a Zayn smile, Harry notes—just an ordinary smile. “You were—“

“I was studying,” Harry motions vaguely to the books on the table, which, he notices are mostly comic books but Zayn nods slightly.

“Studying?” Conor laughs again and Harry wonders if he has to make everyone feel like shit for no reason, “A college boy? You robbin’ the cradle Zayners?”

“He’s only a year older than me,” Harry points out instead of scoffing at him. Numerically he’s two years older than Harry for another two weeks but—technicalities. He’s really hoping he doesn’t have to see much more of Conor because he’ll probably burst a blood vessel trying to keep his eyes from rolling every other sentence.

“Young love,” Zayn says drily running his fingertips lightly over Harry’s hip again.

“Fuck. I need to know how you guys met and everything. I bet it’s a great story,” Conor looks Harry up and down again and he tries to stand tall under his judgmental gaze, “I gotta run though, boys.”

Harry doesn’t like being called _boys_ —men, more like it. He has a lot of problems with this Conor character.

“Come over this week for dinner, yeah? Double date. Melanie loves to cook she can make us all something. You boys down?”

“A—what? Double date?” Zayn’s golden skin seems to go pale as he swallows

“Yeah, we would love to,” Harry smiles and smacks a kiss to Zayn’s temple, “Just text Zaynie here the details, yeah?” _Always Zaynie never Zayners,_ he wants to add.

He runs his fingertips down Zayn’s arm the way he always does when Zayn gets nervous but, he realizes, it’s much like a boyfriend would. It’s good, he decides, because, evidently, Zayn _is_ his boyfriend.

“Cool deal,” Conor offers his thumb up to them before heading backwards towards the door.

“Cool deal, bro,” Harry deadpans back because _who even says that shit anymore_ as Conor opens and then disappears out the front door.

“Fuck me,” Zayn pulls from Harry and drops his face in his hands.

“Zayners? What kind of nickname is that and who the fuck is Conor and why am I your boyfriend?”

“You should probably sit back down,” Zayn says with his voice muffled by his hands.

///

“We’re going to that dinner tonight, you remember, yeah?” Zayn asks as Harry saunters by with sinfully tight yoga pants pulled up near his ankles, a zip-up hoodie hanging off his frame and a headband pulling his hair off his face. Zayn has always loved Harry’s yoga look.

“Yeah, I know, I know,” Harry laughs grabbing a water bottle from the fridge, “I’m super excited, _babe.”_ He drags his hand through Zayn’s hair as he passes him sitting at the table even as Zayn tries to duck away.

It’s only been three days since the start of their fake relationship but Harry’s taken to calling Zayn ‘babe’ whenever possible with a cheeky smile on the edge of full on laughter. He blows him a kiss as he goes out the front door and Zayn catches it to humor him. He can hear his laugh as the door shuts behind him.

-

All things considered, Harry had taken Zayn’s lie in stride. His only question after Zayn explained how the lie had started was, “And why do we hate him?” It was actually kind of reassuring, in a fucked up way, probably, for Harry to jump on board right away instead of telling Zayn to grow a pair and just admit to the lie. He had a feeling Louis wouldn’t have gone along with the plan if he had been the one sitting in the kitchen the first day.

Zayn’s short answer to Harry was he didn’t _hate_ Conor. His longer answer, when Harry stared at him blankly, was a bit more involved.

Zayn met Conor his second year of school. Zayn admits, now, to being pretty inexperienced and just wanting someone to want him. It was convenient enough when Conor showed up. Conor, who was all straight-laced and thought Zayn had some sort of bad boy edge. In a way, he guessed, the tattoos and piercings with the permanent angsty brood on his face gave way to something like a bad boy edge. But somewhere along the way, Conor decided wanting Zayn had to come in the form of changing him. Trying to fit Zayn in one little box instead of realizing Zayn creates his own lines and they’re never perfectly straight.

The thing is, Zayn was the one to cut it off to decide it wasn’t worth it. He likes to get swept away in romance or whatever but he knows what he wants and Conor, quite simply, was not it. Conor, for some reason, has failed to understand that. He’s insistent he broke Zayn’s heart and constantly asks him if he’s found someone new. Zayn’s fought with him multiple times insisting he’s perfectly happy being single but none of it seems to stick.

Harry had interrupted over a mouthful of cereal then, to tell him he didn’t need to explain any further and he would gladly accept being his fake boyfriend. Zayn kissed his shoulder and thanked him before poking his belly and making milk dribble down Harry’s chin as he laughed at him.

As fake boyfriends go, he figures his best friend isn’t a bad option. Of course Louis had been appalled when he came back that morning and they explained it all to him. _This is why I can’t leave you two alone, I come back and you’re balls deep in a shit storm,_ he yelled as they tried for looks of regret over their smirks.

-

Zayn adjusts some of the papers on the table. He’s been trying to work from the apartment more often so he doesn’t have to set up all of his stuff at his studio only to bring it home later. Sometimes an idea hits him in the middle of the night so he likes to have his projects nearby to add to. Being an agency artist is different from a corporate job, sure, but he still likes to bring his work home with him.

“Honey, I’m home,” Louis yells walking in the door startling Zayn enough to look up from his work.

“Why are you screaming? I’m literally sitting right here.”

“Fuck, Z, I’ve been in the door for probably three seconds and you’re already up my ass,” Louis drops his bag on the chair across from Zayn with a laugh before leaning over and scrunching his fingers through his hair as he tries, again, to dodge away.

“Since I’ve cut my hair again you and Haz are, like, eight times as likely to fucking touch it. Why is that?” Zayn asks running his own hand through the top of it. It’s a style he’s found himself coming back to for the last year, tightly shaved sides with the top long enough to lay to one side or pull up into a bun.

Louis purses his lips taking a step back from the table to study Zayn intently, “I guess ‘cause the top is so long it’s like a little bunny up there and then the sides are such a close shave it’s like petting a porcupine.”

“I hate you, I really, really hate you,” Zayn says shaking his head slowly before twisting a hair tie from his wrist and pulling the—little bunny—part up into a topknot.

Louis cackles with his head thrown back as he heads into the kitchen just behind Zayn, “Where’s your boyfriend?”

“My what?”

“Haz, your boyfriend, come on now, babe.”

“Yoga, it’s Tuesday,” Zayn twists in his chair to look at Louis, “Why was that so natural for you? Like, there was no hesitation at calling him my boyfriend.”

“I’ve been practicing, Z. If you guys are in a play, I want to be in it too. Have I not told you my acting stories from Grease?”

“You were Danny Zuko, it was the best experience of your life—I think the entire world knows. What’s this about practicing?”

“Well, like, just with one of the girls at work. She’s all ‘what are you doing tonight’ and I said ‘I’m going to dinner with my roommates—they’re boyfriends’. Just like that I—“

“You—what? You’re not coming to dinner with us.”

“Excuse you, yes I am. How is your story going to be believable without the lovable third roommate who has charmingly funny stories about how sickeningly sweet you are together but also how you fuck like kinky, little rabbits?”

“None of that, and believe me when I say _none_ of that, sounds like something I need in my life,” Zayn points at him willing him to back down but already seeing a lost cause.

“It’s cute you don’t think you need me,” Louis shakes his head walking backwards to the hallway. “I’m still coming and no one’s stopping me,” he yells and Zayn puts his forehead down on the table with his eyes squeezed shut.

He really can’t imagine how he's supposed to make it out of the pretend boyfriend game looking any better than he did going in.

-

Zayn runs his hand along all of the shirts in his closet debating what to wear. He knows it doesn’t actually matter. At the same time though, he wants to make sure Conor can see his tattoos because, _Wow, Zayners, how are you going to get a real job with all those?_

He knows he won’t have to tell Harry to show off his own ink, he’ll more than likely saunter next door with one button done up on a see-through shirt and think it’s completely casual. Zayn smiles to himself because, for Harry, it _is_. He grabs a maroon button down and shrugs it on, rolling the sleeves up to his elbows.

“Hi, I’m late, I’m late, I know,” Harry’s voice comes through the apartment followed by the thump of his yoga mat against the floor.

“It’s alright,” Zayn yells back nearly overpowered by, “Did you get stuck in twisted leaf or some other shit like that?” from Louis one room over. Admittedly, Zayn and Louis’ yoga lingo is not up to par.

“I was helping to clean up,” Harry’s voice is closer as he crosses the hall to the bathroom to turn on the shower, “And then there was this woman and her cat is having kittens.”

“How does that even come up in conversation?” Zayn asks moving to lean against his doorway and buttoning his shirt.

“Just like,” Harry pauses from lifting his shirt, holding the hem halfway up his stomach, “I actually don’t remember.” He pulls the shirt over his head and drops it to the floor, “Anyways, does anyone have any thoughts on getting a cat?”

He looks to Zayn but before he can respond Louis rushes into the hallway from his room.

“Fuckin’ shit, no, absolutely not,” Louis shakes his head, “That is real responsibility and I’ll be the first to say we can’t handle such things. Also, a joke about me being the only one of us getting pussy or something clever like that,” he throws over his shoulder disappearing back into his room.

“Such a buzz kill,” Harry throws his headband on the counter, “Anyways, I’ll shower real quick and then we can go.” He shuts the door halfway before pulling it open again, “You okay?”

Zayn nods with his best impression of a smile. If he’s honest, he’s starting to get nervous. He doesn’t even have a reason to be but it doesn’t stop the gentle crawling in his stomach.

“Don’t be nervous, yeah?” Harry says reading his mind and flipping the door handle up and down with his hand, “I’m a really good boyfriend. I have zero experience but what I lack in expertise I make up for with enthusiasm.” He grins, the one curling up over his teeth slowly.

“You’ll be perfect, Haz. And if it’s awful and they never want to hang out with us again--,” Zayn shrugs and Harry rolls his eyes at him.

“We’re gonna be so much fun they won’t even know what to do with themselves,” Harry throws one more smile at Zayn before shutting the door.

Zayn finishes buttoning his shirt laughing and going in his room to find his rings.

-

“Honestly Harry, you’re making us late for our fake date,” Louis yells from where he’s laying on the couch doing something on his phone.

“Not _our_ date,” Zayn mumbles sitting on the arm by Louis’ feet. Harry runs out of his room with his shirt flying behind him. Zayn takes a second to look at the ink on his chest and the top of his belly, the beginnings of defined abs from his yoga obsession.

“Are you going with no buttons today, love?” Louis asks lifting his head to look at him.

He ignores the comment pointing at the wall behind the TV, the wall they share with Conor and Melanie.

“Yeah?” Zayn raises his eyebrows at Harry’s wide eyes.

“They might be able to hear us, we have to be careful,” he whispers pulling his shirt together and buttoning the bottom three buttons.

“Tits out, nice,” Louis says in response followed by Harry’s middle finger pointed straight at his face.

“Is it too much?”

“No, Haz, you’re fine, Lou is bein’ a dick as usual,” Zayn punches his calf making him yelp before standing up, “Ready?”

“Yeah,” Harry nods adjusting his jeans and glancing down at his chest with pursed lips.

“I am,” Louis jumps off the couch.

“You’re coming too?” Harry drags his eyes up from his chest, probably considering if he should go for four buttons or not.

“Unfortunately,” Zayn sighs.

“If you don’t start seeing me as an asset to this team, Zayn,” Louis warns, poking the side of his face but, this time, actively avoiding his hair hanging in loose waves to one side.

“Team?” Harry follows the older boys, “No one tells me anything.”

“I’m coming to add dynamic to the story,” Louis whispers glancing at the wall, “Like all your secrets and boyfriend stories.”

“We don’t have any boyfriend stories,” Harry furrows his brow.

“Not important. Just remember to go with whatever I say, though.”

“This is sounding worse and worse by the second, dude,” Zayn pulls open their front door, grabbing a house key from the hook.

“No faith,” Louis shakes his head walking out into the open hallway.

“Oh, wait, wait,” Harry turns and runs back to his room as Zayn follows Louis out.

By the time Harry comes into the hallway, shutting the door behind him, they’re standing in front of Conor’s; convenience of living three feet away. Zayn knocks at the same time Harry holds something out in his hand to him.

“What? What is that?” Zayn’s still knocking as he looks at the chain in Harry’s palm. He drops his hand from the door when Harry offers it to him. It’s Harry’s ring—the one with the solid gold circle he used to wear all the time but recently retired to his dresser—hanging from a silver chain.

“It’s like,” Harry frowns slightly, “Like, boyfriends, yeah?”

“Harry,” Zayn looks to the door and back to the ring, knowing the door is going to open any second, “We’re not engaged.”

“I know that,” he pulls his eyebrows together, Louis’ eyes bouncing back and forth between them excitedly, “But, like, I’ve seen this. You know, you miss me but you have this little piece of me,” he dangles the ring at Zayn as they hear footsteps echoing just beyond the door.

“Where did you see that? Something tells me it was a book and not real life,” Zayn whispers trying not to laugh at his eagerness.

As soon as the words are out, Harry’s sliding the necklace up over his head as Melanie pulls open the door.

“Evening, boys,” she smiles at all of them oblivious to what was happening moments before.

“Hi,” Louis scoots between where Zayn and Harry are still staring at each other, “I’m Louis. Fifth wheel for the evening, lovely to meet you.”

Zayn gives Harry a soft smile at Harry’s complete look of innocence before grabbing his hand and pulling him through the door.

-

Zayn doesn’t have a lot of memories saved about Conor but he’s reminded, almost immediately, how fucking annoying he was—still is.

His stories are boring, as usual, yet he expects everyone to hang on every word. Zayn thinks Melanie is a good match for him as she listens intently as if Conor is writing the next bestselling novel with his mouth.

Though Zayn will never admit it, like, ever, he is happy Louis came with them. Louis who can’t bite his tongue and has a way of insulting people so they still think he’s joking. It turns out he is the perfect counterbalance to Conor.

Conor with his not-so-subtle talent for making things, like his own opinion, sharp enough to have someone else feel like shit. Like, “Oh, Harry, are those bird tattoos? See, me, I’ve never really understood something as gaudy as a tattoo."

Of course, he probably expected to make Harry upset instead of Louis throwing on a winning smile and saying, “See, myself, I love tattoos. I absolutely cannot stand morons though—just people with absolutely no sense of decency. You know what I mean?” over the edge of his wine glass. Zayn met Louis shortly after his break up with Conor and now he’s more than sure the two of them would never have gotten along if the timing had been any different.

For his part, Harry hardly listens to Conor or his jabs, instead trying to copy everything Melanie does and doing it to Zayn. Like, when she tilts her wine class up against Conor’s lips while Louis is speaking. Harry looks confused before lifting his own glass and trying to pour it in Zayn’s mouth with intense focus. His surprise mixed with Harry on the brink of laughter makes him spit the red wine down his face as he and Harry both start giggling and trying to pretend they’re coughing instead.

It’s not until they start eating when Zayn realizes he and Harry just can’t compete with—whatever the fuck it is that’s going on at this point.

Louis is telling a story at the end of the table and it’s become so long it’s nearly background noise. Not that he notices his distracted audience--he’s still Louis, after all. Meanwhile, Harry and Zayn are transfixed on Conor eating a spaghetti noodle with his fingers. Twisting it along his tongue obscenely while Melanie watches, entranced. If Zayn’s honest, it looks like a method for sucking cock but his girlfriend seems to be eating it up.

He glances at Harry and notices he has an identical expression on his face. His pink lips set in an ‘o’ and his eyebrows lifted just slightly. Zayn reaches his hand to Harry’s knee and squeezes gently making him look over. They both smirk before going back to watching as Melanie grabs a noodle off of her plate to start feeding it to her boyfriend.

Besides Louis’ story that’s stretching on for ages, it’s awkwardly quiet and Zayn questions, not for the first time, why he ever feels the need to prove anything to Conor in the first place. Sure, he’s the one with a fake boyfriend but Conor is trying to seduce his girlfriend during a self-initiated double date.

He looks back over at Harry when he sees him move out of the corner of his eye but by the time he registers what’s happening it’s too late.

Harry has picked up a breadstick and locks eyes with Zayn as he runs it across his lips slowly. He parts his lips to slide it in, his tongue licking out under it. Zayn figures it could be hot or something, if Harry’s eyes weren’t shining with laughter as he pretends a breadstick is a dick. He pushes it further in his mouth as Zayn smiles slowly, trying to block his side profile from Melanie and Conor who seem oblivious. Zayn covers his mouth noticing how far the breadstick has gone down Harry’s throat without him gagging.

Louis is still rattling on at the end of the table as if nothing is happening and cheers, Tommo for being able to get lost in his own stories when no one else is.

“What the fuck is going on?” Louis is, evidently, not as lost as Zayn thought as he stares at Harry with wide blue eyes.

Zayn takes in the sight of Harry with his mouth stuffed full of bread, drool starting to slip out of the corner of his mouth and bursts out laughing.

“Just eating,” Harry mumbles biting on the bread and chewing quickly.

“Fuckin’ shit,” Louis murmurs at both of them before seeing Conor and Melanie have a noodle between them like some _Lady and The Tramp_ remake. All three of them raise their eyebrows at each other and look away at the same time. Voyeurism in the form of eating--Zayn never even knew it was a fetish.

-

The rest of the dinner, and Zayn and Harry’s first date as fake boyfriends, passes with more of the same; Harry making Zayn laugh every other bite and Louis running passive aggressive interference as Conor and Melanie all but make out with each other.

All is better than expected until they’re leaving and Melanie wraps her arm around Conor as they face Louis, Harry and Zayn near the door.

“Thank you guys for coming,” Melanie says nuzzling against Conor’s shoulder and Zayn feels his lip curl without conscious thought. You’d think they were trying to prove _their_ relationship rather than Zayn and Harry’s.

“Thank you for having us, it’s been nice,” Harry, ever the politest, says before linking his fingers with Zayn and running his thumb in circles over the dip by Zayn’s thumb. It’s easy to wrap his fingers around Harry and oddly reassuring.

“We’ve been looking for more couples to hang out with, actually,” Conor wraps his arm around Melanie’s shoulders and Zayn has a bad feeling about where this is heading.

“We’d love to hang out with you guys more,” Melanie says still looking at Conor before smiling over at them.

“Sorry to interrupt but you want to hang out with your boyfriend’s ex-boyfriend with his new boyfriend?” Louis interrupts pointing at each person as he speaks, “Fuck that’s a lot of boyfriends.”

“We feel like it would be good to build a friendship with you, Zayn, and of course you, Louis and Harry,” Melanie points at them.

 _We_? Zayn met Melanie less than a week ago and she wants to build a friendship like she’s his ex too.

“Oh, uh, yeah. You should just let us know when you want to hang out,” Harry takes over with half of a grin, “and we’ll check our schedules. Zayn’s really busy with his art and work and I have school and, you know, yoga.”

“Yoga?” Melanie looks up with bright eyes, “Do you do, like, couples yoga ever?”

Zayn watches Harry’s grin slip just slightly.

“They do,” Louis nods quickly and looks surprised when Zayn and Harry both focus dark glares directly on him.

“Really?” Melanie bounces on the balls of her feet and Zayn wants to go backwards to the club on Friday and proudly say, “Hey, I’m single” just to avoid anything at all like couples yoga. Better yet, he wants to hit Louis.

“You must be good, yeah?” Conor looks between Harry and Zayn, “Harry, at dinner, you said you’ve been doing it for awhile? Three years?”

“Yeah but I’ve only done it with Zayn a handful of times,” Harry squeezes Zayn’s hand, maybe asking for help or maybe for added reassurance.

“Yeah, I’m not the best so we don’t go that often,” he tries to brush off the idea.

“That’s perfect. Melanie has been going to classes and I don’t know anything. We should all go together,” Conor says and Melanie is nearly radiating with energy next to him.

“Uh, maybe,” Zayn says slowly.

“Like I said, you can just call us and we’ll see what we can do,” Harry nods at Louis who opens the door as if on command.

“Zayners, wait,” Conor disconnects from Melanie to grab Zayn’s elbow. Zayn cringes at the nickname—he’s only told Conor how much he hates it about two hundred times. Harry catches Zayn’s eye and he nods him away, watching as his roommates go out the door and Melanie goes back to the table to start stacking dishes.

“I’m really proud of you.”

“What?” Zayn can’t hide his confusion.

“Harry seems really great. I know you’ve had unrealistic expectations in the past and I didn’t want you to see my happiness with Melanie and be jealous or anything, you know?”

“Unrealistic—jealousy?” Zayn feels his mouth opening and closing, his mind racing in pointless circles, “Dude, no disrespect but you don’t really know anything about me anymore.”

“No, no, I see that,” Conor raises his hands in front of him innocently, “I just know the you from when you were twenty, I get that. You just seem to be doing well. I hope you can hold onto it. He seems so young, college boy and all, but if that’s your thing...”

And there it is. The compliment laced with the jab of doubt. Conor isn’t really hoping Zayn can be happy he’s waiting with baited breath for him to fall apart and ruin everything with his “college boy” boyfriend.

“Honestly, my happiness isn’t your issue,” Zayn absently fingers Harry’s ring hanging from his neck, “And, to be honest, Harry makes me happier than you ever did. Sorry if that hurts or whatever.”

It’s true. Even as a friend Harry is better to and for Zayn than Connor ever was.

“It doesn’t,” Conor smiles slowly but there’s something darker in his eyes, “I just hope it all works and you get your fairytale or whatever. Don’t want to lose our hangout buddies after all.”

“Right,” Zayn takes a step away resisting rolling his eyes, “Like Haz said, just let us know when you want to hangout and uh, thanks for dinner,” he holds his hand up in a wave going through the open door and taking the few steps to his own apartment hearing Conor click the door shut behind him.

-

He finds Louis laying on the couch looking on his phone again and Harry at the table with his computer set up, probably getting ready to study.

“Louis Tomlinson, I hate you,” Zayn flicks his forehead as soon as he’s close enough to him.

“I won’t even pretend to be confused,” Louis drops his phone on his chest looking up at him, “I felt like I was adding color commentary to a fake couple but I see how I might have taken it too far.”

“Might have? Couples yoga, Lou,” Zayn leans over the back of the couch to stare at his face with his eyebrows raised, “Couples. Yoga.”

“Like I said, I see the error in my ways,” Louis tries for innocence over his smirk and Zayn punches his stomach. Only hard enough to make him curl in a ball over a quick exhale followed by a few choice words.

Zayn crosses the room to Harry who is focusing on his computer intently, pulling at his bottom lip with two fingers.

“Haz,” he sets his hand on his shoulder making him turn, “You working?”

“Starting the writing part of my thesis finally,” Harry says. He’s only been procrastinating for the last couple of weeks on it. It’s actually a pretty cool senior thesis, as those things go; Zayn has listened to him talk about it for months now as he’s researched the evolution of modern romance through music.

“Thanks for coming with me tonight,” Zayn sits in the chair next to him dragging his hands over his face.

“Of course. What kind of boyfriend would miss his first date?” Harry smirks, his fingers running aimlessly over his keyboard without pressing any of the keys.

“That’s the thing,” Zayn purses his lips, “After you left Conor was kind of implying he thinks we’re gonna break up, like, I’m not capable of having a relationship, I guess. Some play on the hopeless romantic side of me, as usual.”

Harry grins, “Well we just won’t break up then. That’ll show him,” and then, “But really, Zaynie, we can do this as long as we need to.”

Zayn smirks, “You sure? I actually kind of thought we would go over there once and they’d never want to hang out with us again and it’d be over.”

“Are you kidding me?” Harry licks his lip over another smile, “We’re a magnetic couple, Zayn. Did you see me giving a blowjob to a breadstick at dinner? Like, fuck, we are the most fun couple in the world.”

Zayn can only shake his head and squeeze his eyes closed at the memory of Harry with his mouth full.

“And I don’t care about keeping it going. It’s not like we have paparazzi, we just have to go hangout with people together—s’not like we don’t do that already.”

“Yeah but, like, couples yoga.”

“I don’t think they’re going to follow through with that one,” Harry wipes at something on his screen, “Trust me, we’ll be fine. Conor doesn’t know you anymore and he can’t predict what you’re going to do. You’re not Zayners.”

“I never was Zayners, to be honest,” Zayn cringes at the name, “He’s started using that since we broke up.”

“Thank god because that name is actually awful,” Harry laughs.

“You’re the best, Haz really,” Zayn runs a hand through his curls scratching lightly when he feels Harry lean into it. “You’re like a damn cat, babe.”

“Feels good,” Harry says closing his eyes and leaning further.

“Nope, no,” Zayn pulls his hand away from Harry, “Don’t fall asleep. You’re writing your paper.”

“Zayn,” Harry pouts before smiling when Zayn pokes where his dimple should be.

“I’m gonna work on a concept design,” he says standing up to get his pencils from his room, “Keep you company while you work.”

He turns to head for the hallway when he sees Louis perched on his elbows over the back of the couch watching them, “You are the cutest little boyfriends,” he says smirking at them and wiggling his eyebrows.

“Louis,” Harry and Zayn say in unison in scarily the same tone as Zayn walks away.

It’s not a boyfriend thing for him to stay up at night while Harry works; it’s just a Zayn and Harry thing.

///

 Harry’s thinking about Zayn as he walks home from his last class the next day, keeping his head down against the biting wind.

When Louis introduced Harry to Zayn the first time, nearly a year ago, they were both drunk. Zayn was in a back alley smoking and he looked at Harry with something like desire and a wolfish grin.

“You look like Mick Jagger had a kid with baby Tarzan,” he said kicking off the wall and coming closer when Louis pointed at him, his cigarette hanging down by his hip.

“Well, you look like a Greek god, man,” Harry offered in return and Zayn barked out a laugh putting the cigarette back between his lips.

“I like you already,” he said, something far kinder in his eyes than Harry had first seen.

Harry always says he fell in love with Zayn in that moment. The kind of love that’s more of an infatuation than anything. Adoration at the way his eyelashes fanned over his high cheekbones and his long black hair flipping at the ends. Harry was so caught up he didn’t even remember Zayn’s name that first night. He was too busy staring at his tattoos and he nearly lost his breath when Zayn turned to Louis and his earring flashed through his hair.

Harry has a thing about the word beautiful—he’d rather use it sparingly than outright. Use it for the times his breath catches in his throat or it’s the only word big enough to encompass a feeling he can’t place. But he knew that night as he still knows now, Zayn Malik is beautiful; every little piece.

In a matter of random meet ups in the next week Harry went from being coolly intimidated to wanting to listen to every word Zayn had to say. He wanted to know everything about him; where he grew up, his art, his sisters. He listened to Zayn talk about how he first started drawing, the street art he used to do at home and his favorite books. Sometimes in the middle of a story he used to find himself just staring at him—still does a year later.

For the first time, Harry let someone ask him questions too. He told Zayn about the small town he came from, his older sister and the blog she was starting, his dream of getting involved in the music industry. He started with the big things and eventually moved to the small things too—how he likes when people touch his hair and he tries to eavesdrop on conversations just to make up stories for the strangers having them.

There was a time when Harry considered hooking up with Zayn; it wasn’t a secret they found each other attractive in more ways than one. Sometimes when they were talking until the sun was rising, lingering glances turned to softer touching but neither one of them made a definite move or said anything about it in the light of day. In the end, Harry was thankful he didn’t fuck it up (quite literally) or he wouldn’t have ended up with Zayn in his life. He was sure of this—he’d never been capable of turning sex into something more.

Four months later and he was moving into the spare bedroom in Zayn and Louis’ apartment. Six months after that and their friendship is still the closest Harry has. The magic, as Louis says, has always come in the way they balance each other out.

People tend to think Zayn is the more serious one and on some levels he is. He’s also ridiculously nerdy and looks out for his friends with a fierce loyalty. He’s creative even down to the absent scribbles on napkins at dinner and he always says the thing everyone’s thinking before they have the guts to. He was the first one to tell Harry to not let his kindness be mistaken for weakness and to this day, Harry hasn’t stopped asking him for advice.

As for Harry, he likes to think he can balance Zayn too. He likes to bring out the sides of him no one gets to see—the side of Zayn that dances in a club or starts giggling for no reason. Harry thinks Zayn giggling might be one of his favorite things, if he’s honest. It’s the last thing people would expect from the beautiful boy with earrings and tattoos. Harry’s light-hearted and tries not to take everything too seriously—he tries to remind Zayn of that too.

Louis has always said they’re weirdly close for just friends so maybe it’s not that weird for them to pretend to be something more.

They already have a habit of staring at each others mouths when they're talking, watching as their lips caress their words. Sometimes it seems like they can read each others minds but Harry knows a lot of that comes from spending so much of their time together. They’ve always been touchier than with other people and Louis always gives them shit for practically laying on each other when they’re all hanging out. Harry can watch Zayn work for hours and Zayn will stay up with him while he studies or he’ll help him when he finds a yoga pose he wants to try.

It was kind of funny when Louis was telling all of his stories last night just how many of them were true. The rest of what Louis had said, of course, were lies—some of them more ridiculous than others.

The one lie that had made Harry blush the hardest involved Louis coming home to find Harry naked and tied to a chair with Zayn on top of him. Zayn had stared at Louis like he’d lost his mind, squeezing Harry’s knee under the table and stealing a secret glance as Harry tried to remember to keep breathing. Harry would be lying if he said the idea of Zayn tying him up hadn’t nearly sent him falling out of his chair but no one needed to know that. Nor how he had mulled the idea over, more than once, lying in his bed last night.

Harry approaches the door to their apartment to the low sounds of intermixed moans and grunting. He checks his phone while he grabs for his keys because he’s pretty sure it’s two o’clock on a Wednesday. But, then again, he’s not in a position to judge anyone for their sexual tendencies.

He unlocks the front door and it takes him a moment to process the sounds coming from inside. He takes a step backwards and realizes the moans outside are different than the low grunts inside. He must have missed some sort of sex mating call, he decides, going back in and shutting the door quietly. He wishes someone had told him everyone was having sex at two in the afternoon on Wednesday so he could have made his own plans.

He sets his bag down by the table noticing Zayn’s abandoned art supplies. He’s been working from home recently leaving Harry plenty of time to be transfixed by his work. He runs his fingers over the beginnings of a drawing of a brain but pauses at the deep moans rolling through the apartment. On a particularly loud sound, he decides it’s in his best interest to disappear into his room and drown out whatever is happening to, or with, Louis or Zayn.

He stops when he notices Zayn and Louis’ doors—side-by-side—wide open. Getting to his room, in the middle of theirs on the opposite wall, just became a land mine of potentially scarring images inside one of the rooms.

He tries to focus more closely on the noises and realizes they’re coming from the room closest to where he’s standing. It’s Zayn. Harry’s not _jealous_ of his pretend boyfriend having sex but he doesn’t love the idea by any means. Especially with the door open, especially with all of the times he’s wondered about sex and Zayn. Like, what he would sound like during, if his toes would curl, if he would be demanding or gentle—if he would pull Harry’s hair. He pauses. He can’t remember when he stopped wondering how Zayn fucked to wondering how he would fuck him. He knows that’s not the way he’s supposed to think of his best friend but its too late now. He feels his cheeks flush and--he desperately needs to get to his room.

Vowing to keep his head down he takes a tentative step down the hallway. He doesn’t know if it’s his inability to follow even his own directions or his curiosity but the second he’s standing in front of Zayn’s door his eyes snap over to the movement inside.

What's happening inside doesn’t correlate with the sounds—it’s what he notices first.

Zayn is standing on his bed like he’s on a surfboard. He old mattress is rickety enough on the bed frame as he shifts his body weight to slam the wooden headboard against the wall. Low R&B is streaming softly from somewhere in the room and Harry’s eyes are drawn to Zayn’s computer on his dresser blasting the exaggerated moans from two naked bodies on top of each other on the screen.

He knows his mouth has dropped open slightly as he takes in the scene in front of him. Like a train wreck and he can’t look away.

Zayn doesn’t seem to notice as he stares intently at the wall he’s slamming his bed into; conveniently another wall their apartment shares with Conor and Melanie. Harry debates trying to leave but feels rooted to his spot in the doorway at the weird turn of events. He catches the shock washing over Zayn’s features as he catches Harry staring at him.

“What are you doing?” he asks looking at Harry. He’s still standing on his bed but has stopped slamming it against the wall.

“Me?” Harry puts a hand to his chest, “I’m just standing here. You’re the one doing, well, I really don’t know what this is,” he gestures vaguely around the room, his eye catching on the porn playing on the computer again--one guy pinning the other to the ground, their hands caught in each others hair.

Zayn laughs then, not the one where his tongue slips behind his teeth but the one where he slowly realizes what’s happening in a situation, a slow smirk into a laugh.

“I wish there was a way to make this not sound awful and pathetic,” he says.

“Wait,” Harry looks at the wall, connecting the sounds he heard outside with the faint echoes not coming from Zayn’s computer, “You heard Conor having sex so you’re in here staging some sort of sex scene?” Harry’s trying not to smile but failing at it quite miserably.

Zayn shrugs and starts to bounce a little more on the springs of the mattress, “Well, at least you’re saving me the embarrassment of saying it out loud.”

“You’re mad you know that?” Harry leans down to slide off his boots tossing them in the doorway, “You could have had actual sex with someone, like nasty revenge sex or something. Proved how happy you are with your life.”

“It’s wouldn’t be revenge,” Zayn rolls his eyes over the reminder, “Plus, this is a workout, which I needed. Wait, what do you think you’re doing?”

++

Harry’s crossing the room towards the bed running his fingers back through his hair, “I’m your fake boyfriend, I should help you have fake sex.”

He lifts his foot onto the bed until he’s standing across from Zayn in his socks.

“And now I think we should definitely stop because this can only go wrong from here,” he crosses his arms as Harry starts to bounce slowly on the mattress.

“No, no, we’re doing this right,” Harry starts jumping in earnest, closing in on the headboard to make it slap the wall. Zayn has stopped bouncing all together just absorbing the shocks of the mattress from Harry’s movements.

Harry, who Zayn suddenly understands has been hiding his porn star acting skills from everyone.

“Fuck, Zayn,” he says over a smirk, his voice as breathless as if he was spread out under Zayn on the bed he was jumping on. “Right there, baby. Fuck, oh, fuck,” he winks at Zayn before slamming his palm against the wall for extra emphasis. Zayn finds himself biting his lip watching as Harry drops his head back on his neck looking far beyond acting at this point, “Shit, oh god, Zaynie, please, please.”

He feels his cheeks flush when his thoughts wander to if Harry would actually sound like that during sex. He’s heard him from across the hall before but it’s usually more the sounds of the people he’s with rather than Harry. If _their_ sounds are anything to indicate Harry’s skills—Zayn might subtly adjusts his pants while Harry still has his eyes closed.

“What the fuck is this, then?” Louis appears in the doorway just then and Zayn can only imagine the scene from his point of view.

Harry pulls his head back up twisting to look at Louis and falling on the bed in surprise, “Fuck,” he places his hand over his heart, feeling the pulse of surprise beating under his fingertips.

“No but, really,” Louis steps further into the room adjusting his bag on his shoulder, glancing to the computer still playing on the dresser, “I feel like I can’t leave without some sort of explanation.

Harry pulls his knees to his chest kicking his feet as he cackles in something reminiscent of childlike glee. Zayn looks down at him with nothing short of a fond smile before focusing back on Louis.

“Pretend sex with my pretend boyfriend?” he scrunches his nose as he says it as if it can change the words and what Louis is seeing.

“Oh for fucks sake,” Louis throws his hands up as he turns to leave, “And here I’d thought you finally bit the sexual tension bullet and actually fucked.” He starts shaking his head as he turns back out into the hallway.

Well. Zayn sinks to sit on the bed because he didn’t really expect Lou to say that. He glances over at Harry who is whining over his laugh trying to catch his breath having missed Louis’ suggestion from the doorway.

“Was that good?” Harry asks when he’s finally stopped laughing and lays his legs back out straight on the bed.

Zayn just raises his eyebrows and shakes his head slowly, “Think you can do better.”

“I—“ Harry pauses to tilt his head towards the screen on Zayn’s dresser, “Can you turn that off? I can’t talk with a guy literally getting the life fucked out of him.”

“Oh shit, yeah,” Zayn scoots off the bed going over to his computer and exiting the video letting his music be the only sounds in the room for a moment before Harry starts giggling all over again on his bed.

Zayn nearly thinks _what a fucking disaster_ before glancing at Harry’s red face and deep dimples and revising to _thank god for Harry Styles._

_///_

It’s almost a week later when Louis comes home and stops on the threshold just short of screaming out his usual post-work greeting.

“Is someone here?” he whispers looking around before his eyes land back on Harry and Zayn on the couch. Harry tilts his head from his book to look at Louis upside down but Zayn doesn’t stop twisting his fingers in his curls.

“What?” Zayn looks behind him and back to Louis.

“Is, like, Conor here?”

Zayn shakes his head slowly and Harry blinks a couple of times.

“Why are you sitting like that then?” Louis points to them, Harry stretched along the couch with his head in Zayn’s lap.

“Like what?” Harry asks with his head still upside down.

“Like all laying on each other,” Louis closes the door behind him throwing his bag down. “Fuck the fake boyfriends this,” he points back and forth between them, “looks real.”

 Zayn looks down as Harry tilts his head to look up at him and they both start laughing at the same time.

“We’re kind of commiserating together,” Zayn doesn’t even notice he’s speaking to Louis while staring at Harry who is still staring at his lips; it really has become a habit. “Conor and Melanie want to go to couples yoga.”

“We thought they forgot,” Harry pulls his gaze from Zayn focusing on Louis.

“And then they sent me this list of classes and there was like—”

“There was like one every hour the whole week.”

“And we decided we can’t be busy every hour of the week.”

“So we’re going tomorrow night.”

“Harry’s excited, I’m hoping to get hit by a car before we have to go.”

“Hey,” Harry nudges his side which is all he can reach, “We’re gonna be fine.”

“I don’t even know what the fuck you both just said because you’re literally completing each other’s sentences,” Louis is staring at both of them with his jaw dropped just slightly.

“We didn’t,” they say at the same time.

“You’ve always been like this, what am I even saying?” Louis leans back further in the chair kicking his feet up on the coffee table.

“How was work, Lou?” Harry asks instead of continuing down the path of how close he and Zayn are.

“Awful. Do you know how many contracts have to be signed if you’re under eighteen and on a television show?” he doesn’t pause for a response, “Like, twenty. And we have six contestants under eighteen this season. It’s a fucked up form of babysitting is what it is. Chasing them around all over the studio. Just talking about it makes me need a drink.” He gets up and goes to the fridge for a beer before making his way back to his chair. “But no one signed me up for couples yoga so my life is still a little bit better than yours and you know what? I take comfort in that.”

“Let it out, man,” Zayn smirks taking his hand out of Harry’s hair for the first time and fishing out his phone from his pocket, poking Harry’s dimple with his free hand when he whines at the movement under his head.

“You know you can come to yoga with us if you want. Like, make it a triple date thing?”

“First of all, no. Anyone I’m dating is not meeting my roommates under the pretext of them being fake boyfriends and second of all, I don’t need to go on a date. I can _actually_ sense you’re getting ready to say something about me being lonely.”

“I’m not,” Zayn holds his hands up, “Neither of us is a model of being in a relationship—“

“You’ve got Mr. Sensitive,” Harry points at Zayn, “Who can’t keep things on a surface level so he scares everyone away. And Mr.—“ he purses his lips, “Well, me. And you can’t tie me down unless you tie me to a bed.”

He laughs as the words leave his lips with Louis booing him and Zayn snatching his books from his hands to smack it against his chest—lightly, to be fair.

“Too much information,” Louis shakes his head as Harry laughs.

“We just want you to be happy,” Zayn says when Harry takes his book back and settles it back on his chest.

“I’m happy. Really. Watching you guys get deeper into this shit show is bringing me incredible joy.”

“S’not a shit show,” Harry tries to nudge Zayn’s hand until he starts playing with his hair again.

“Right, so when are you breaking up or have you thought that far ahead? Do I have to attend a fake wedding as well?”

“Louis,” Zayn warns before he says something too far.

“No, really, tell me,” Louis raises his eyebrows over his bottle of beer.

“The whole thing,” Harry sits up fully dislodging Zayn’s hand, “The whole thing is to prove to Conor that Zayn is happy, you know? Like, happy and not a relationship ruiner or whatever. So, we just do it for a while and if one of us meets someone or something we can stage a break up if that’s what it comes to. Yeah?” he glances at Zayn who notices, not for the first time, the way his eyes go mossy green when he asks a question.

“Yeah, Haz,” Zayn stares right at him before shifting his focus to Louis, “It’s not like a big elaborate thing.”

“Alright, alright, don’t be gettin’ too serious, I’m just fuckin’ with you,” Louis takes another drink of his beer, “Now, tell me about couples yoga. Is it like an orgy or what are we talking about?”

Zayn gestures at Harry and lets him take the lead since he’s the only one of them who has _actually_ seen to such a thing.

++

Harry’s been parading around the apartment with his headphones in and singing at the top of his lungs. He got back good marks on the initial outline for his thesis and he gets to go to yoga. He knows he’s not supposed to get all jumpy before he goes to class but he can’t help it. He doesn’t like to sit still, if he can help it.

Zayn’s been nervous since he got home from the studio and is still in his room trying to figure out what to wear.

“This good?” he says appearing in the main room with his hands out to the side.

“Yep,” Harry doesn’t look up trying to watch his feet as he attempts to twirl.

“You’re not even looking.”

“I am,” Harry stops and swallows. He’s sees Zayn every day of his life, spends more time with him than most other people. He still takes his breath away sometimes. He smirks thinking how nice it is to have pretty friends—pretty friends who look gorgeous heading to yoga with their fake boyfriend.

In all actuality, Zayn’s just in grey sweats with a black sweatshirt zipped over a white tank with a grey beanie over his hair. Harry thinks it’s an outfit he could make look ordinary at best while Zayn pulls it off like a runway look. He bites his tongue before he says it out loud.

“Looks good,” he offers instead.

“Alright, let’s do this thing, babe,” Zayn say grabbing a house key and opening the door for Harry to lead the way out.

-

Luckily, Conor and Melanie said they would meet them there rather then all walking together—the studio is only a few blocks away.

“Do you think they ever heard our fake sex?” Harry asks carrying both yoga mats until Zayn grabs one from his arms, the one he bought this morning, holding it instead. “Like, if you think about it, there’s a chance they didn’t even hear it and we did that all for nothing.”

“Babes, they definitely aren’t going to mention if they did,” Zayn shakes his head looking over at Harry and laughing.

“That feels like such a bro thing, though,” Harry knocks Zayn’s hip when they reach the sidewalk, “Bro, heard you fuckin last week,” Harry takes on the accent of perhaps the douchiest imaginary person he can manage.

“Conor’s not my bro,” Zayn jabs his side, “And when we were together he wasn’t really the way he is now. Well, a little bit, I guess.”

“What was he like? Besides being a complete dick, that is,” Harry asks because he’s genuinely curious. The way he and Zayn became friends was based on the things they liked and their equal balance against each other instead of a shared history.

“I guess, like, for him, I was a project,” Zayn runs his hand along his jaw, “Like, I don’t think he ever saw me as more than someone to piss his parents off with. The thing was, like, he didn’t like the things about me that pissed his parents off, you know? So, take smoking. He hates it, like, always used to give me shit for it. Then I hear him on the phone with his mom talking about me and how I smoke all the time but he loves me anyways.”

“Love?” Harry looks over, mild surprise across his features. He doesn’t think he’s ever found love—hasn’t really been looking, if he’s honest.

“Not at all,” Zayn laughs albeit bitterly, “It was such a disaster. I think I’m falling for him, he thinks he’s falling for the bad boy idea of me—neither one of us was actually falling anywhere. That’s what I mean when I don’t hate him. It’s just like one day I felt like I needed more, you know? We were friends and at one time there was an attraction or whatever but it didn’t make me happy, I guess? It was just…happening. You know?”

“I’ll say yeah but I don’t, not really,” Harry smiles a little, a lopsided smirk with only one dimple.

“It’s not worth it. Always be with someone who makes you genuinely, smiley, happy, yeah?”

“Like this?” Harry lifts his lips around his teeth in the saddest approximation of a smile as they reach the doors to the studio.

“Yeah, there’s the sexy smile I love,” he laughs, his eyes crinkling with it when Harry starts wiggling his eyebrows seductively.

“My sex appeal is through the roof, I know,” Harry does his best Blue Steel before laughing fully with his eyes shining.

“There you are,” Melanie comes up next to them as they both try to stop laughing.

++

If Zayn’s honest, he can’t think of anyone who makes him laugh as hard as Harry other than his sisters. The giggling kind of laughter most guys his age have long outgrown or hide away.

“Here we are,” Harry holds his arms out to the side still laughing a little, as he says the words, for no apparent reason.

“We saved you spots over there,” she points to where Conor is laying on his back on a yoga mat, “I think you only need one mat though.”

Harry looks down at both of their mats and then catches Zayn’s eye, the traces of laughter still in his face.

“We know that,” Zayn puts his arm around Harry’s waist without offering further explanation. Melanie just shrugs before leading them over to the spot on the floor, going through a maze of other yoga mats and couples leaning close together.

“Zayners and college boy,” Conor sits up and claps his hands once when he sees them.

“Oh let’s go with just Zayn and Harry, thanks though,” Harry says with a smile unrolling his mat and laying it down as Zayn tries to look away to hide his own smirk.

Before Conor can say anything else the teacher, a tall brunette woman, stands in front of the class and calls them to attention. She rambles on about how doing yoga with your partner can increase synchronization and intensify sexual connections. Zayn and Harry glance at each other during the introduction swallowing their laughter while Conor and Melanie start to get closer to each other looking like they’re about to have sex on the floor.

Zayn tells Harry as much when they face each other on the mat to stretch and Harry whispers a story about a girl he met who didn’t use yoga to relax because she used to get turned on by the movements in class.

“Shh,” Conor hisses over at them and they both roll their eyes at the same time.

“Bitch, don’t kill my vibe,” Harry whispers the lyrics at Zayn making them both grin. It reminds Zayn of being in a club over the weekend when Harry bugged the DJ over and over to play the Kendrick Lamar song. When it finally came on he squealed and grabbed Zayn, dragging him to the center of the dance floor for it.

-

The first pose they do is sitting with their legs crossed on either end of the mat and holding hands. Harry moves first to pull Zayn’s arm across his body and down by his hip to stretch his back. Zayn only winces slightly before switching to do the same for Harry.

He’s pretty familiar with the stretches from his past dabbling in yoga, two classes his older sister dragged him to during a break from school, but the more complicated positions go over his head.

By the middle of class he’s pretty sure if he had partnered with anyone besides Harry he would have landed on his face or ass more than once. Instead, he finds Harry physically balancing him as they move through the positions, subtly supporting him and directing him as they go.

For some reason he thought they’d be surrounded by couples making out and rolling around on each other and, actually, maybe they are, but he’s too focused on where he’s supposed to put his hands and feet to even notice.

“You’re thinking a lot,” Harry says as they stand up from a kneeling backbend to face the front again.

“This is hard,” Zayn says by way of explanation making Harry smile.

They get ready for a downward dog and backbend combo with Zayn opting to do the downward dog part first. He tries to walk his hands out in front of him but ends up bending his knees each time.

“Here, get up on your hands and knees,” Harry whispers and Zayn does it not wanting to be the last ones to get in the correct position—somehow, he’s decided to turn the class into a competition. He jolts when Harry’s hands wrap around him, his hands brushing against the skin of his hips where his tank has rode up.

“Keep your hands flat, yeah?” Harry starts pulling his hips up standing behind him and Zayn let’s his knees follow until he’s up on the balls of his feet.

“Put your heels down,” Harry whispers still holding his hips.

“I can’t,” Zayn says from between his legs looking at Harry upside down. Harry stands straight and pushes down on Zayn’s hips but his knees end up bending all over again.

“Fuck, babe, you’re so tight,” Harry says his brow furrowing as he tries to make Zayn’s body do the correct position. Before he knows it Zayn’s collapsed on the floor under him laughing with his face pressed into the mat.

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” Zayn licks his lip and tries to get back up noticing other people in the class are already getting in the right position, “You make it sound so dirty, Haz.”

“I’m sorry you’re twelve years old,” Harry says holding Zayn’s hips until he’s in the right position and laughing as he goes to stand in front of him. He leans back until his back lines up with Zayn’s lower back in as much as a backbend as he can handle with his own back problems. He closes his eyes feeling rather than hearing Zayn still chuckling under him.

They switch and Harry goes into downward dog position easily. Zayn can’t help himself as he squats down next to Harry and whispers in his ear, “So flexible for me, babe,” sending Harry onto his knees with a flushed face as he stares up at Zayn.

“Zayn,” he hisses going back into the position still smiling when Zayn does the back bend on him.

They’re both laughing when they stand out of it and wandering eyes from the class are drawn to them as they try to compose themselves.

Finally, they get to lining up their vertebrae for the last part of class. Harry went first and now Zayn is lying on his back with Harry sitting back on his heels next to him.

“What do I do?” Zayn asks looking up at him.

“Like, push your back into the mat, yeah?” Harry puts a hand on his belly applying gentle pressure.

Zayn closes his eyes for a moment as he does but blinking up at Harry when he finds him staring at him intently.

“Why are you looking at me like that?” Zayn whispers.

“Like what?”

“Like you might kiss me?”

“Maybe I am,” Harry wiggles his eyebrows up and down before leaning forward and kissing Zayn quickly. Just as quick he’s back up sitting on his heels glancing around the class to see what everyone else is doing.

Zayn closes his eyes tight because maybe that was part of the act and maybe it wasn’t but it doesn’t change the way Zayn’s skin suddenly feel electric—like the burn of lip balm over chapped lips. When he opens his eyes again it’s because Harry’s poking his side and pointing just beyond them to Melanie straddling Conor and all but sucking his soul out of him through his mouth.

“Fuck,” Zayn’s eyes go wide as he tries to keep from laughing and Harry leans forwards to hide his face against Zayn’s chest, his laughter vibrating through both of them.

-

After the class is finally over, Harry rolls up the mat while Zayn talks briefly with Conor hoping to not have to make any future plans for yoga together. Though, he does feel more relaxed so he thinks it could be something he could get used to. He breaks off the conversation with a quick goodbye as the teacher starts to make her way over towards Harry.

It’s a good thing they didn’t make more plans for yoga, he thinks, because they’re probably about to be asked to never return. Zayn knows yoga is about vibes and auras and other things Harry loves and he doesn’t think their laughing was conducive to such an environment. But, to be fair, he doesn’t think Melanie full on mounting Conor was the right vibe either.

He nudges Harry to stand up when the teacher gets closer. She introduces herself as Abby and Zayn keeps waiting for her to yell at them. Instead, she starts talking about how in sync they are with each other and how she couldn’t stop watching the way they moved together. Harry grins and tells her how much they liked the class while Zayn stands silent watching him.

“Together you have such a positive vibration,” she says looking between them, “It was just really refreshing to see in this class. A lot of times we get couples struggling to connect or working through some issues but you guys clearly have it all figured out.”

“We try,” Zayn offers twisting his fingers with Harry’s and grinning at her noncommittally as she tells them to come back soon.

It’s not until they’re outside he remembers to drop Harry’s hand and the fact they’re supposed to be convincing _Conor_ they’re together but somehow found themselves convincing Abby too.

///

“I have the best plan,” Liam announces walking into their apartment the night before Harry’s birthday.

“Spoiler alert,” Niall says shutting the door behind them, “It’s to get Harry drunk as fuck.

“Fair plan but Louis is beating you to it,” Zayn reaches for the handle of vodka in the cabinet above the refrigerator and brings it down to the table.

“Where is he?” Liam asks glancing at the couch.

“Well, he’s been drinking since his last class and he can’t—“ Zayn glances back at the sound of something smashing against the wall and then Harry appearing out of the hallway in a sheer white button up with his hair flying wildly around his face as he balances himself.

“Harry, happy birthday,” Niall grabs for him in a hug and Harry smacks a kiss on his cheek before reaching out to Liam and wrapping his arms around him.

“He couldn’t button his shirt,” Louis announces walking out of the hallway scratching his neck.

“I could,” Harry laughs a little navigating around the table to stand by Zayn, “I just wanted to let my butterfly breathe.”

“As in not buttoning any buttons on his shirt,” Louis adds in draping himself between Niall and Liam.

“M’not even drunk,” Harry says looking to Zayn, “I only got iced, like, five times since class.”

“And who did that, babe?” Zayn smirks with his hand wrapped around Harry’s hip. He can see his laurels tattooed clearly from where his fingertips press in on the fabric.

“Tommo,” Harry yells the name and Louis cringes.

“I apologize,” he says reaching for the vodka and pouring shots all in a line.

“You in, H?” Liam slides him a shot glass.

“’Course, I’m twenty-two and I can drink like tank.”

“Cheers to that,” Niall grins as their shot glasses clink together in the middle of the table before they down them.

-

Harry walks to the club holding hands with Zayn on one side and Liam on the other. He wants to skip but Liam just shakes his head at him when he tries.

“Be cool or they won’t let you in,” Zayn says when they get closer and Harry nods. He can look sober on command—weirdly, he’s been in more situations where he has to pretend to be than is probably normal. The get in the club easily with Harry grinning at the bouncer and being the kind of nice his friends have already come to expect but still blows people away. [ _He’s just so polite, it’s kind of scary,_ he hears a girl behind them whisper.]

He follows Louis and Niall straight to the dance floor, smiling wildly when the song switches to one of his favorites while Liam and Zayn head for the bar.

Harry doesn’t keep track of the passing time as he dances in circles but he knows he’s happy. He spends a lot of his time being happy but spinning around in the middle of the floor with his friends is nothing short of pure happiness. He turns to tell Louis just how happy he is when he’s met with a different guy completely.

He’s standing still in the constant roll of bodies around him staring at Harry. He’s tall, taller than Harry, with blonde hair pulled in a bun and a sly grin.

“M’Harry,” he introduces himself. The guys didn’t ask but he’s staring at him like he wants to know him.

“I like your dancing,” he says reaching for Harry’s hand and pulls him closer. For a split second Harry wonder if he’s being hit on before the guy starts dancing with him—spinning and grinning just as stupidly as Harry had already been doing. And this--Harry loves it. Dancing with strangers who don’t want anything more than to _dance._ Well, sometimes it leads to something else but in the moment it’s just moving and laughing. It’s simple.

In a rush of vodka infused confidence, Harry thinks he could have been a dancer in a different life. He has almost no rhythm, he knows, but he loves it. The music rolling through him and letting his limbs fly everywhere.

Harry doesn’t mind dancing with strangers but he vastly prefers dancing with Niall. Niall, who has no reservations about being embarrassing, which Harry appreciates in a dancing partner. Liam is a good time too—trying dance moves that look effortlessly cool even though Harry knows he practices in the mirror to make them look that way. Maybe he should drag them onto the floor with him, he thinks, as he glances around at the blur of strangers.

No, what he really wants is to dance with Zayn. Zayn, who will hold tight to him while they dance, if only so he doesn’t have to be alone in the middle of the floor “looking like a lost puppy, Haz”. Harry doesn’t mind it though—he likes when Zayn needs him because it isn’t all that often. He starts thinking about how well he concealed his excitement at seeing Zayn where the necklace he gave him out tonight. It’d made him ridiculously happy and—fuck he just wants to find Zayn.

He tightens his grip as the blonde guy pulls him in a bit closer trying to catch his eye. Instead, Harry twists his neck to look for Zayn, spinning around slower to focus. He spots him right away, leaning against the near wall, looking like something of a model as always. His hair is in casual waves to the side with his black jacket it’s probably too hot to be wearing. But, at the same time, Zayn’s so _cool_ in all meanings of the word so he can wear one. And—wow, he needs to probably not drink anymore.

“You’re a good dancer,” the guy yells at him and Harry nods—he’s definitely not. It’s usually around the compliments when dancing turns to trying to get Harry to stay with them for the night. He stops moving completely when he sees Zayn is talking to Conor. They don’t look too heated or anything Harry needs to interrupt but his heart stutters when Conor looks towards him. Zayn follows his gaze with both sets of eyes landing on where he’s still holding hands with the blonde dude.

 _No_.

Harry drops the guy’s hand when they go back to talking and look away. He can’t let Conor think he’s cheating on Zayn or something like that. Zayn deserves better than that, even from a fake boyfriend. He doesn’t know what to do until he’s already surging across the floor.

Conor is waving his hand to leave as Harry reaches them. He looks between them for one second before reaching for Zayn, his momentum pushing both of them against the wall.

Harry’s hands slide easily to his neck as he let’s his lips find Zayn’s in a kiss. He deepens it, licking his tongue into Zayn’s mouth in, what feels like, the edge of dirty. He shifts to slot his leg between Zayn’s as his body starts to take over, biting at Zayn’s lips and holding his neck. He swears his stomach bubbles when Zayn licks back into his mouth, his tongue wide and warm. Harry’s about to lose himself completely when he feels Zayn’s hands on his chest--pushing him back slightly.

Harry doesn’t move back fully just pulls his face back far enough to see Zayn’s features coming back into focus. His harsh breathing, flushed cheeks and blurry eyes.

“He’s gone,” he says squeezing at Harry’s hips gently.

He nods and licks his tongue over his lips, over the taste of Zayn. Yeah, that’s what they were doing. Waiting for Conor to leave, proving to Conor they’re fine—more importantly, Zayn is fine. That’s all it was. Nothing, really. So what, if Harry had squeezed his eyes shut pretending it was real for the moment, that Zayn was his. It doesn’t matter if the lights flashing behind his eyelids were the brightest they’d ever been because Zayn must have had his eyes wide open waiting for it to be over.

He pulls back from Zayn completely, landing against the wall next to him and trying to compose himself. It felt so real. It was raw and he liked it. And—fuck.

“You good?” It’s Zayn grabbing his hand and pressing his fingertips to the back of Harry’s.

He nods, “Make him eat his words.” He smiles without the happiness quite reaching his eyes—it’s too dark for Zayn to even notice.

“Dance with me?” Zayn says pulling him away from the wall, “My birthday gift to you,” he laughs and it’s enough to get Harry to smile again.

Zayn pulls him to the middle of the floor and Harry takes a deep breath before taking Zayn’s other hand too. He can do this. He can have his best friend and only kiss him when he’s trying to prove a point. Really, he can. He can do it because there’s nothing he wouldn’t do for Zayn. Not even just drunkenly, he tells himself as Zayn’s face scrunches in beautiful laughter as they move around the floor, but soberly too. Probably, always.

Instead of debating it further, he starts dancing in earnest—flopping his hair around until Niall comes to join them too. He lets the music course through him without letting go of Zayn’s hand once; Bouncing and floating around the floor with his anchor to hold him there.

And fuck—he’s drunk.

++

Zayn pushes Harry into a booth when they’re done dragging each other around the dance floor to make sure he doesn’t fall. In all fairness, it’s not even that he’s stumbling around drunk—he just happens to be clumsier than most people Zayn knows. That’s why, he tells himself, it’s alright for him to wrap his arms around Harry as they navigate through people and keep his hand around his waist until he’s settled against the wall and Zayn can slide in next to him. Just keeping him from falling.

“Babe, do you wanna go talk to that guy from earlier?” Zayn asks him as Louis slides a glass of water to Harry, climbing in the booth across from them.

“Who?” Harry asks seconds before drinking the water and getting more down his chin and neck than in his mouth, of course.

“Uh, taller guy, blonde hair, before—“ he stops before he can finish with _before you kissed me._ He’s trying not replay that in his mind over and over—not that he’s succeeded so far. The way he wanted to rut against Harry’s thigh when he slotted it between his legs, the low moans he’d held back as Harry bit his lip. How he almost forgot where they were until he remembered Harry was drunk and proving a point. Zayn couldn’t let himself get caught up in the dirty romantic surface when the deeper level of it all was to prove a point—it wouldn’t end well.

“No, Zaynie, all I want is you,” Harry says kissing Zayn’s cheek and throwing his arm around him.

“Thanks,” Zayn laughs leaning into him before pushing him closer to the wall as Niall slides in the booth.

He starts in with a story about a girl he met on the dance floor who’d started to put her hands under his shirt while they were talking and—Zayn stops listening because he’s staring at Harry. The thing is, Harry’s staring right back at him with his head propped on his hand on the table. It’s a drunken thing, Zayn guesses. They just look at each other, eyes traveling faces slowly, silent conversations, and comfortable quiet.

“They’re doing it again,” Liam nods towards them when he walks up to the edge of the table.

“We’re not,” Harry says blinking slowly at Zayn, smiling softly.

“They’re just so damn pretty they stare at each other to revel in the beauty,” Louis says it like it’s a fact and it’s enough for Zayn to break eye contact and look over at him.

“We don’t have to stare at each other to appreciate our beauty, Louis—we already know we’re gorgeous,” he pouts and squints his eyes while Harry starts blowing kisses and winking at them.

“I hate them,” Niall says throwing is head back with laughter, “I hate you guys so much I love you.”

“I love my friends,” Harry says reaching his hand past Zayn to grab on to Niall’s shoulder too, “I don’t even want to get laid tonight, I just want to be with my friends.”

“And, he’s hammered,” Louis laughs while Harry pouts.

“Anyways, I’m hungry,” Harry says as a response, “Can we go get food?”

“Birthday boy gets what birthday boy wants,” Liam says backing away from the table so they can all follow. Harry chugs the rest of Louis’ beer before standing up, mumbling something about wasting alcohol, while they all try to pry it out of his hands.

-

They stopped at a taco cart on the way home where Harry insisted on getting the life stories and deepest secrets out of the people both in front and behind them in line. He talks to strangers with such ease and people trust his wide eyes and open face effortlessly. Zayn laughed over his cigarette when Liam’s jaw dropped listening as the girl behind them told Harry her fear of commitment.

“In line for tacos and he’s like a therapist back there,” he said with wide eyes, lighting his own cigarette. Zayn exhaled a breath of smoke and nodded.

Harry likes to get to know people but he rarely let’s people get to know him. Zayn’s always said he’s the kind of guy known by everyone and no one. People want a piece of Harry, think they’ll get one back if they tell him all their secrets but Zayn knows that’s not how it works. Not for Harry.

Louis, Zayn and Harry made it back to their complex around two, failing to keep their voices below yelling as they raced to the parking lot shoving each other as they ran. Louis climbed on Zayn’s back insisting he couldn’t walk up the stairs and Harry started singing and clapping his hands to an obscure song no one had ever heard of as they piled into their apartment.

Now, Louis and Zayn are sitting on the balcony with their feet propped up on the railing. Harry comes out when Louis is lighting the joint and looks between them before leaning over the railing to look out into the night.

The apartment backs up onto an empty field. Zayn would rather look at the city, be inspired by random people out and about but he knows Harry likes the emptiness—reminds him of home. And, quite honestly, when they’re high it doesn’t necessarily matter what they’re looking at.

Louis takes a pull holding the smoke deep in his lung as he hands the joint to Zayn. It’s silent as they pass back and forth, already drunk and moving slowly to high.

“You want some Haz?” Louis asks over an exhale and Harry turns to face them slowly. The light inside the apartment lighting up the front of him, his hair pulled back in a bun and his lip rolling through his teeth slowly.

“Shotgun?” Harry looks at Zayn with bleary eyes. Harry the little healthy yogi who likes to smoke when he’s drunk but only if he can shotgun. Its times like these Zayn thinks he loves him.

“’Course babe.” Harry slumps onto his lap with a lazy grin while Louis eyes them wearily.

Zayn looks up at Harry’s face for a second the warm light over his features like there hadn’t been in the club. His lips are swollen slightly, his cheeks flushed, the slight smell of smoke, sweat and vanilla rolling off of him.

He lifts the joint to his lips sucking in the smoke. He lifts his hand to Harry’s neck, pulling him down and closer to him. He taps the edge of his jaw with his thumb and Harry parts his lips. Zayn presses their mouths together exhaling the smoke into Harry as his eyes flutter close. He pulls back slightly keeping his hand over Harry’s neck.

“Good?” Zayn asks running his thumb over his jaw again until he nods.

“You’ve got to be fucking kidding me,” Louis stands up and grabs Harry’s hands.

“C’mere Haz, let me do one.”

Harry looks at Zayn only briefly before shrugging and stumbling to his feet. Louis stands to take the joint from Zayn.

“Open your mouth,” he says pulling Harry’s shoulders down so their faces are level. Harry drops his mouth open obediently. Louis takes a drag and leans forward. He presses his mouth to Harry’s leaving a hair of space between their lips as he exhales. He backs up as Harry starts coughing, his eyes watering as he clutches his chest and turns to face the open field.

“That’s how ‘just friends’ shotgun,” he looks pointedly at Zayn before sitting back down, “Just for future reference.”

“I--,” Zayn purses his lips, knows exactly what Louis is implying, “At least my way doesn’t make him hack up a lung.

Harry spins back around wiping his mouth, his eyes red rimmed already as he licks his lips. “I’m baked,” he announces plopping back into Zayn’s lap and sliding his arm around his neck.

“Look what proving your point did,” Zayn laughs as Harry tucks his face against Zayn’s neck, his eyelashes fluttering slowly.

“Ah, shove off, he’s always tired as shit after one hit,” Louis joins in laughing and Harry pulls back to sit up.

“M’fine, really. I can do more, probably.”

“No,” Louis and Zayn both say, immune to Harry’s pout even before he does it.

“It’s my birthday,” he says and they still don’t respond to him though Zayn slides his arm around his waist to hold him more comfortably.

“Tell us about your favorite birthday party, Haz,” Louis says handing the joint to Zayn.

“Alright,” he agrees easily, forgetting about the joint all together as he tells about his sixth birthday party at a petting zoo. His slippery slow voice drags even more under his cross fade effectively turning it into a bedtime story more than anything.

Zayn tries to listen to Harry’s story but the slow drone of his voice mixed with his fingertips massaging the back of Zayn’s neck as he speaks makes his eyes close in the haze of smoke. This, he starts to think, might be the best kind of happiness he’s ever found.

///

Zayn doesn’t see Conor for a few days after Harry’s birthday. It doesn’t even take effort to not see him—even as neighbors it rarely happens. That is until Louis brings him to their apartment on a Friday night.

“Look who I found,” Louis announces when he comes home with wide eyes before Conor follows him in.

“Hi Zayn,” Conor waves walking right in and sitting on the couch. Evidently, Zayners has been retired. Fucking, finally.

“He’s locked out,” Louis offers slipping off his shoes by the door and coming over to where Zayn is drawing. He mouths, “Sorry” when his back is to Conor. Zayn flips the paper before Louis can notice who exactly he’s been drawing for the last hour.

“Right,” Zayn clenches his jaw, “S’up man?”

“Melanie will probably be home in a couple hours, sorry to bother you,” he says looking around awkwardly.

“How were the kids?” Zayn ignores Conor and looks to Louis who hasn’t been coming home from contestant rehearsals until nearly ten every night this week.

“Not bad—there’s this girl who actually wants to be Jennifer Lopez so that, as you can imagine, is quite the adventure.”

“I’ll bet,” Zayn grins, he always loves to hear Louis’ behind the scenes stories.

“Is Haz here?”

“Nah, he went out,” Zayn takes out one of the drawings he’s actually supposed to be working on, stacking it on top of the sketch he’s trying to hide.

“Wild that boy of yours,” Louis winks when he sees Conor looking at them.

“That’s Harry,” Zayn rolls his eyes at him as Conor turns back to look at one of the books on the coffee table.

“Anyways,” Louis sings, his lips twitching, “I’m going to shower and then I promised Conor we’d play FIFA.”

“Great,” Zayn says plainly, not looking forward to hanging out with Conor while Louis is gone.

“I’ll be quick,” he says to no one in particular before flitting out of the room.

It’s quiet for a moment just the sound of Louis singing before Zayn decides to break the stillness of the room.

“You can watch TV or something. The controller should be somewhere over there--Harry usually leaves it under one of the pillows.”

“Got it,” Conor says after some shuffling around and getting it out from under a pillow like Zayn suspected.

It floats back into silence as Conor clicks through the channels.

“How was your week?”

Zayn jumps when Conor is sitting right across from him the TV, evidently, abandoned.

“Uh, good,” Zayn says putting a hand over his drawing. For some reason it’s okay when Harry watches him draw but anyone else makes him self-conscious.

“I haven’t seen you guys since that club,” Conor says rolling one of the colored pencils around on the table.

 “Been busy, I guess,” Zayn’s heart is pounding like Conor knows his secret but there’s no way he would. He wonders if it would matter at this point. If Conor were to say, _I know you aren’t dating Harry_ , if he would fight it or if he would just agree. He figures he’d suck up his pride and agree as long as it wouldn’t embarrass Harry. They’re deep enough in their fake relationship now it isn’t just Zayn’s pride on the line.

“Sorry, what?” he realizes Conor is still talking to him.

“Oh, you just said Harry’s out tonight?”

“Yeah?” Zayn internally groans at answering a question with one of his own.

“You didn’t go with him?”

“Obviously,” Zayn holds his hands out slightly, “We aren’t attached at the hip.”

“I see that,” Conor runs his fingertips over his own eyebrows as Zayn resists the urge to roll his eyes, “Different lives and all that.”

“Meaning?”

“Like, he’s still in school and you have a career. Or drawing—is that a career?”

“It is a career, thanks,” he says with only a slight bite to his words, “And Harry and I are fine with being so busy, it’s nice to have different things going on.”

“Makes sense,” Conor nods and before he can say something else, Louis announces his return to the room with a burp.

“Let’s play,” he says pointing at Conor and Zayn’s more than happy to have him do something else.

-

He gives up on drawing for his most recent proposal when Conor and Louis are yelling at their video game and he loses focus. Instead, he starts messing around with some drawing techniques he found on the internet.

At about midnight he hears what can only be a body slam against the front door and everyone looks over, the game forgotten on the TV.

Zayn’s heart thuds in his chest when he realizes he should have text Harry and told him Conor was there. Told him if he wanted to sleep with someone to go to their place tonight.

Even if the thought of Harry going home with someone else is starting to bother him in a way it never has before. He can all but imagine someone slamming Harry back into the door as they get ready to fall into the entryway mid-make out.

Zayn’s about to stand up and, well, he doesn’t know what exactly. Block the door with his body, possibly. Instead, the door flies open and Harry comes in alone with his key in his hand.

His dark green shirt with lighter green leaves printed with black lines [“you actually look like baby Tarzan in that,” Zayn had told him when he was leaving] is down to two buttons done up as he stumbles over his boots. His hair is a mess of curls, fluffier than when he left as he takes in the room with a shiny, pink-lipped grin.

“Sorry ‘bout that,” his honey thick voice is even deeper as he looks around, “Look at all my favorite people here. Lou-bear, Connie,” he points at each of them nodding slowly when he focuses on Zayn, “and my Zaynie.”

He yells the last part swinging the door shut as he bounds across the room until he forces himself into Zayn’s lap, his arms naturally going around Harry’s waist to hold him.

“You have fun tonight, Haz?” Zayn asks over a laugh without noticing Conor or Louis looking at them.

“Not as fun without you,” Harry wiggles in Zayn’s lap before adjusting to press his face against Zayn’s neck. He pulls back for a moment to loudly add “Missed you, babe”, before putting his face back as Zayn laughs. He runs his hands slowly along Harry’s back feeling the natural heat rolling off of him.

“How’s that?” he asks against Zayn’s neck so only he can hear him.

“You’re good,” Zayn says in a low whisper forgetting, yet again, they’re trying to prove a point.

“What are you drawing?” he asks sitting back up and sliding an arm around Zayn’s neck.

“Just messing around with some shading,” he says noticing how blown out Harry’s pupils are, his eyes barely focusing as his words slur slightly. “Do you want to go lay down?” he squeezes the soft part of his hip to get him to look down at him.

“Yeah more fake sex,” he whispers animatedly before getting up only to slip against the table before standing back up fully, “M’good,” he announces to the room even though Conor and Louis have already gone back to playing their game.

Zayn stands to get in front of him letting Harry wrap his arms around him and hook his chin over his shoulder. It would look oddly couple-y if it wasn’t something Harry did to people when he was too drunk to lead himself.

“We’re going to Zayn’s bed,” he announces as they walk past the couch and Zayn shakes his head, smirking.

“Thank you for telling us, Haz,” Louis says without looking up though Zayn catches Conor staring at them as they turn towards the hall, Harry pressed against Zayn as much as possible.

“Goodnight Connie,” Harry yells over a laugh as Zayn leads him into his room, letting him go to shut the door and flip the light off. “If he keeps calling you Zayners, imma call him Connie,” he whispers as he careens across the room, landing on his stomach across Zayn’s bed.

“Deal. Fix yourself, babe,” Zayn pokes his ass through his black pants as he moves to the other side of the bed, “I have to fit here, too.”

He turns on the lamp next to his bed casting a dull but warm light around the room. He twists his lips over a smile as Harry flops around on the bed until he’s face down on of the pillows.

“I love fake sex,” Harry says into the pillow when Zayn lies next to him on his back,

“What are you on about, Haz?”

“I’ve had more fake sex with you than real sex since I’ve become your fake boyfriend.”

“You don’t have to do that,” Zayn puts his hands behind his head keeping his voice low.

“Not on purpose,” Harry shakes his head in the pillow turning his neck to face Zayn, “Just haven’t met anyone or anything s’just funny.”

“If you, you know, meet someone don’t stop on my behalf, yeah?”

“Yeah, no, I know,” Harry wipes the back of his hand over his mouth, “M’just thinkin’ out loud here.”

“I see,” he notices how slowly Harry blinks, licking out over his lips even slower; Like an oversized, sleepy toddler. “You tired?”

“Yeah, I was up last night working on my dumb paper,” he says, “S’why I went out tonight. Celebrate a little.” He waves one arm around in the air until it hits Zayn and he pulls it back by his side. “Oops.”

“Don’t worry, babe,” Zayn pats at Harry’s hair watching the way it deflates when he touches it only to raise back up again.

“I’m so sleepy,” he says when his eyes fall closed at Zayn playing with his hair.

People playing with his hair might just be Harry’s kryptonite. Zayn knew it the first time they went out together after they became friends and he ended up twisting his fingers in Harry’s hair until he fell asleep.

Harry had left the bar upset that night and Zayn was the first to follow him though they’d only known each other a couple of weeks. He walked around the block with him three times before Harry told him how the guy he was chatting with stopped talking with him when he said his last name was Styles. “Said he heard I slept around too much,” he whispered against Zayn’s chest, the first but not the last time, Zayn found out just how young Harry could sound.

“I don’t though,” he pulled his head back up to face Zayn, “Really. I like people and yeah, I have sex with people but sometimes I just like to have someone with me, you know. Not bad or doing anything. Just there.”

Zayn all but carried him home that night, laying him on the couch and playing with his hair until he fell asleep. He thinks he knew that night he would always look out for Harry. Strong, bright, smart Harry who could still be hurt and hide it away.

If people knew Harry at all they wouldn’t hurt him, Zayn knew. They’d want to keep him safe as much as Zayn did.

“Do you think I can go to bed now?” Harry asks into the dark space.

“Haz, we’ve been in here for, probably, fifteen minutes.”

“I know,” Zayn can see the mischievous light in his eyes as he opens them, “That’s plenty of time.”

“Technically yeah,” Zayn smirks as he pulls his hand out of Harry’s hair and sets it back on his chest, “But we’re in the kind of fake relationship where we taste every inch of each other’s skin for, like, an hour.”

Harry barks out a laugh, “An hour?” and then, into the heavy silence, “Oh, you’re serious.”

“Harry,” Zayn rolls his eyes but more fond than annoyed, “Not everything has to be like a quick and nasty, you know?”

“Not nasty,” Harry giggles, a little more alert now. Zayn glances at him--can smell the vodka all but coming out of his skin.

“Have you,” Zayn purses his lips rolling the words in his mind, “Have you ever, like, not fucked?”

“What’s that mean?”

“Like not a one-night stand, babe?” he tacks _babe_ on the end to excuse his lack of tact in his wording.

He just wonders about it sometimes. He feels like he knows everything about Harry but there’s still the unexplored parts. He touches the necklace with Harry’s ring on it. He’s started wearing it randomly since Harry gave it to him on their first fake date. It strikes him, again, how unexpected it was for Harry to give it to him. It makes him wonder if Harry has the romantic ideals of a storybook or was just trying to play a part he never has before.

“Mm,” Harry considers for a moment, “Like, I was hooking up with the same guy for a month once. Like, three times a week probably. Like that?”

“Kind of. But, like, have you ever had an emotional attachment to them?” he all but whispers the words. He knows he’s taking advantage of Harry being drunk—a sober Harry would tell him the same things just with a bit more prodding, he reasons.

“Are we talking about love, Zaynie?” Harry glances at him batting his eyelashes before clearing his throat, “For me, it’s always been like, scratching and hair pulling, you know? The physical feeling over anything else—I mean, it’s not a bad thing,” Harry laughs, “I’m just…sexual, I guess?”

“No shit, babe. I’m just thinking you deserve someone to wake up to in the morning, you know?” He didn’t know he was going to say that until it was out there. It’s too late to take it back now,

“I don’t mind it so much. Sometimes the physical side is just easier. You don’t have to tell anyone all your secrets. Don’t call me a slag either.”

“You know I wouldn’t. I just want you to be happy.”

“I am. Genuinely. Orgasmically happy,” he has his sloppy smile on but Zayn can tell he’s still focused. A drunk Harry is usually as clear as a sober Harry—just a bit louder. Zayn’s always admired it, really. Harry is Harry no matter what.

“Oh shove it,” Zayn laughs, watching as Harry adjusts on the pillow and closes his eyes again.

-

Zayn can’t help but let his mind wander further into his question even though he knows he shouldn’t. He’s thought of a lot of things about Harry he shouldn’t have since they started pretending to be boyfriends. He wants to know if anyone has ever taken Harry apart slowly, if he’s had every inch of his skin kissed or if Zayn would be the first.

He pauses and peeks over at Harry, his eyes are still closed.

He’s thought a lot about Harry before but _this_ is the first time he’s thought of being the one to do it—to show him a different side of sex. The side to tell him how pretty he looks but to pull his hair and hold him on the brink of the deepest edge and— _fuck_ if he isn’t adjusting his hips on the bed to get comfort with Harry less than a foot away.

He jumps when he feels Harry shifting around, pulling his boots off, then his jeans and tossing them over the edge of the bed. He undoes the last two button his shirt throwing it off the edge and then cuddling up to Zayn, resting his head on his shoulder.

“Hey, what are you doing?” Zayn asks as Harry reaches his arm across Zayn’s stomach to hold his hip.

“You won’t let me go to bed so, m’cuddling with my fake boyfriend,” he murmurs adjusting his face against Zayn’s shoulder and sighing softly. Without having to think about it, Zayn pushes his hand up through Harry’s hair as he falls asleep.

Zayn closes his eyes and starts to drift with the question of how many lines he’s crossed with Harry flashing in his mind. Further, how many more he would be willing to. Zayn knows the way he thinks of Harry isn’t how someone is supposed to think of a friend. He knows the way they fall in and out of being boyfriends so easily isn’t _normal._ The things is, he doesn’t know what Harry thinks about it all; If it’s just a game to him, because, lately, it’s feeling like so much more than a game for Zayn.

++

The first thing Harry notices when he starts to wake up is the smell of the pillow against his cheek. The distinct tones of Gucci and something familiar he can’t quite place. He breathes it in as he blinks his eyes open and registers the arm crossing over his belly. He recognizes the long fingers and intricate ink immediately. It’s Zayn. Of course it’s Zayn.

He closes his eyes again just to settle in the moment. He remembers falling asleep on Zayn’s shoulder but he doesn’t know how he ended up with Zayn wrapped around his back with his arm securing Harry to him. It’s one of the first times he remembers just wanting to lay exactly where he is.

On the off chance someone ends up staying with him until morning, he usually finds a way to squirm out of their arms and roll to the floor as soon as he wakes up. That, or he rolls his hips back against them until they wake up properly enough to continue from wherever they left off the night before. Even that is followed by Harry rolling off the bed, though; crawling into the bathroom praying they leave before he comes back out.

He likes people, learning about them but he doesn’t do relationships—doesn’t know _how to_ exactly. He likes to believe he’ll know when he wants something more serious. Gemma always smacks him in the head when he says that and tells him how love is quiet. It happens slowly and without flashing lights or big signs. Harry tries not to think about it too much because worse than never finding someone would be missing out on the right person because he wasn’t paying attention.

Harry’s eyes snap open when Zayn shifts slightly against his back and he can nearly feel every inch of him. He knows he could grind back on Zayn and feel everything but he doesn’t think Zayn would appreciate that.

If they were boyfriends, real ones, Harry thinks he would crawl out from Zayn’s arm and roll him gently on his back. He knows Zayn sleeps heavily so he could get lost in just watching him breathe, memorize the ink on his chest he doesn’t always get to see. Then he could shift between his legs and—he really shouldn’t be thinking these things when their skin is literally pressed together.

He would do it if they were together, though; he imagines they’d wake each other up with blowjobs every morning. They’d spend entire days in bed exploring each other and trying new positions no one else has before. It would be something like Zayn was talking about last night—waking up to each other, more than just a fuck, slow and easy sometimes, fast and hard others and— _shit_ he needs to get out of this bed.

With a sigh he slides forward to sit up on the edge of the bed trying not to wake Zayn. He glances over his shoulder as he stretches to see Zayn already blinking at him like he’d been consciously holding Harry all that time.

“Hey,” he says looking up at Harry with the eyes he has to keep himself from getting lost in, “You sneakin’ out?” His voice has the scratch of the morning to it as he smiles.

“You caught me,” Harry bends his leg to set it on the bed and twist halfway to Zayn, “I was planning to army crawl back to my room.”

“Yeah?” Zayn raises his eyebrows, “I would pay to see you do that without hitting anything or hurting yourself.”

“Hey,” Harry pokes his shoulder, “I could do it. I’m--what do you call it?”

“Stealthy? Far from it, babe.”

“Rude,” he says over a crooked smile.

“Honest. How are you feelin’?”

“Pretty good. Not hungover, if that’s the real question.”

“Nah, didn’t think you would be. You were entertaining last night.”

“Zayn Malik,” Harry feigns surprise, “When am I not entertaining?” and then, “Rhetorical question, don’t answer,” as Zayn goes to speak.

Zayn laughs rolling to his back and reaching for his phone to check the time, “Why are you up so early Haz?”

“I don’t know really,” Harry runs his hand along the sheets where he had been laying, “Your bed is actually really comfortable.”

“That’s what the boys say,” Zayn wiggles his eyebrows at Harry letting his phone drop next to him.

“Don’t make me jealous of our fake sex in our fake relationship,” Harry pouts and then grins. Grins because it’s his face’s natural and slightly embarrassing reaction around Zayn.

“Don’t army crawl out of my room and abandon me then,” Zayn pokes Harry’s bare thigh.

“Deal. How boyfriend-y of us, compromising.”

“You’re getting real good at this, babe,” Zayn rolls his eyes, “What are you up to today?”

“I need to get through another section on my paper but first I want to go to yoga,” he widens his eyes and puts his arms out to the sides on yoga, “Who wants to join me?” He looks around the room animatedly while Zayn groans. “Alright, alright, don’t get too excited, Zaynie.”

He leans forward to get his hands on Zayn shaking him as Zayn tries to bat him off with his arms, pushing Harry’s fingers backwards to making him screech and fall off the edge of the bed.

“I’m so sorry,” Zayn crawls to the edge on all fours and looks down over the edge at Harry, his long legs sprawled out as he stares up at Zayn.

“That feels like something Gemma would have done to me when were kids.”

“I have three sisters, Haz, I have some pretty good gentle fighting techniques.”

“Gentle fighting? Gentle?” Harry’s eyes seem to be getting bigger as his voice gets louder, “You almost snapped my fingers clean off!”

Zayn collapses back to his stomach on the bed, “I’m sorry, babe. Forgive me, yeah?”

“I have to think about it,” Harry pouts rolling over on his stomach and starting to crawl out of the room—army crawl to be exact.

“Haz,” Zayn’s trying to catch his breath over his laughter, Harry’s round little bum shifting back and forth as he tries to snake his way across the floor, “What the fuck are you doing?”

“Army crawling out of here before you break my fingers and hold me captive,” Harry says without looking back and biting down on his lip because this is more of a workout than he expected.

“How are you going to reach the door knob?”

“Don’t doubt me, Zayn,” he mutters reaching his hand for the door and coming up short. He pushes up a little on his hips, the long lines of his back defining as he grasps it with an excited yelp.

“Good job, baby,” Zayn laughs as Harry worms right out the door into the hallway.

He pulls the door shut again, sticking his tongue out at Zayn right before it swings shut. He pauses for a second on his stomach on the floor. Zayn called him “baby” just then. It’s not important, it’s not a thing—like, Zayn calls him babe every other sentence. It probably just slipped out. Like the one time he called Harry “love”—the day they became fake boyfriends. Harry feels the slight flush in his cheeks at _himself_ for noticing and then, remembering.

++

Zayn rolls around until his head is back on the pillow where Harry was laying, breathing in the smell of vanilla and _Harry._

“What the fuck is this?”

He lifts his head at Louis shrill voice coming through the door. He can hear the low rumble of Harry but he doesn’t know what he’s said.

“I thought someone was fucking dying in there,” Louis’ voice is naturally the loudest and Zayn can hear him easily, “I was thinking of going in but then I was like, you know what, if they’ve finally started fucking I’m not interrupting him.”

“Louis,” Zayn yells out at the same time, he already knows, Harry says the same thing.

There’s more of Harry’s voice in the form of deep vibrations and then the apartment goes silent. Zayn pulls the blanket back over his shoulders and closes his eyes. He didn’t mean to wake up so early on a Saturday but something about watching the soft rise of Harry’s back as he slept kept him awake until he felt Harry shifting under his hand.

He would by lying if it didn’t seem like the most normal thing in the world, to wake up holding Harry. It shouldn’t, he knows, but he’s starting to think he can’t help it.

///

It’s funny how a drunken conversation can change everything and nothing all at once. Zayn and Harry keep doing what they’ve always done without discussing the words burning in their throats—the things they’re too scared to say. Instead it’s the people around them who start to put things in motion.

-

Zayn’s sister, Waliyha, calls him almost immediately after he Skype’s his family two weeks later demanding to know if he’s dating Harry.

“What? No,” he says quickly darting to his room away from Louis and Harry’s watchful eyes, “Why would you say that?”

“ _Zayn. He was hanging from your back for half the conversation and the way you guys look at each other, I mean, Safaa thinks it’s really cute but I could almost puke_.”

“Okay, first of all, you’re being ridiculous. Second, are you and Safaa discussing my personal life again?”

_“First of all, not being ridiculous, Zayn. We were watching you in live action with our own eyes. Second, we usually hate everyone you talk to but we love Harry.”_

“You don’t know Harry,” he whispers glancing over his shoulder before moving further into his room.

_“I feel like I do. Zayn, he’s your best friend and you talk about him more than you think.”_

“Waliyha. That’s all he is. Don’t make it something it’s not.”

“ _Yeah, alright when you guys get married let me make a speech at the wedding so I can talk about this conversation.”_

“We’re not getting—we aren’t together. I don’t know how many more ways I can tell you.”

_“That’s fine, you tell yourself that.”_

“Stop.”

_“I am. Full stop. Just saying, big brother.”_

“Don’t mention anything to mom, please, I know how excited—“

_“Too late.”_

“Waliyha.

_“It wasn’t me! Doniya was over and showing her all of the pictures of you guys on Instagram and mom loves it. She’s probably planning the wedding in her mind already. I haven’t shown dad but I bet he’d be on the wedding planning committee too.”_

“What is wrong with you?” Zayn can’t help but laugh because hundreds of miles away and his family is just as involved as when his superhero posters hung on their walls instead of his own.

_“You’re the one who moved away from us and left us to analyze Skype videos and Instagram.”_

“I love you but I don’t like you right now. You get that, yeah?”

“ _Zayn, you love us always. I see your face when you talk to us. Especially Safaa. It’s the same way you look at Harry.”_

“Oh my god, I look at my best friend the way I look at my baby sister? Are you a detective now?”

_“Well, yeah. It’s not like you look at Harry like he’s your sister. Just like you love him.”_

“Shut up, shut up, shut up, I’m hanging up,” Zayn says holding the phone away from his ear.

 _“I love you Zayn_ ,” his sister yells.

“Love you too, bye,” he yells back hitting the end call button and tossing his phone over to his bed.

“You okay, Zaynie?”

It’s Harry. Standing in his doorway looking soft and cuddly in a way Zayn doesn’t need after talking to his sister about the way he looks at Harry.

“Yeah, m’good, babe,” he says smiling. Harry with his oversized sweater and his hair pulled up in a bun with a few curls managing to escape near his ears.

“You still want to work for a little bit?”

“Yeah and then we’re watching a move, yeah?”

“I believe that is King Louis’ plan, yes,” Zayn grabs his phone off his bed following Harry back out to the kitchen where Harry’s already been writing for the better part of the day. His only break had been to Skype with Zayn’s family. Zayn’s pretty sure his sisters were more excited by what Harry had to say than his own stories and Waliyha’s phone call all but confirmed it

++

Harry’s writing his paper but he might as well be writing about the way Zayn looks when he draws. He’s been staring at him so long, he’s pretty sure he’s got him memorized. The way his tongue slides between his lips as he focuses, the smooth glide of his pen over the lines he’s already drawn. He gets so focused on his work and Harry loves it.

“I can feel your eyes on me,” Zayn says without looking up and Harry jumps at the sudden sound amongst silence.

“How?”

“Magic,” Zayn winks at him. “You’re supposed to be writing your paper.”

“I was trying to procrastinate until Louis gets home so we can start a movie.”

“Hm,” Zayn grabs for a colored pen without looking up.

“Do you want to go get ice cream instead?” Harry clasps his hands together hopefully.

“What?”

“Ice cream. You, me, now.”

“You’re just bein’ a slacker Harry, you don’t even like ice cream that much.”

“I do, I do,” Harry says bouncing his knees under the table, “It’s good for your soul.”

“I’ll go with you but I don’t think that’s true,” Zayn drops his pen flexing his hand and shaking it out.

“Do you want a hand massage?”

“Is that even a thing?” he smiles standing up from the table and shrugging on a sweatshirt from the back of the couch.

“I think it is,” Harry purses his lips, “It sounds like something professional. I might quit school and become a hand massager.”

Zayn locks the door sliding the key in his pocket and leading Harry down the hallway, “Ah, well, cheers mom for paying for school but I think I want to massage people’s hands.”

“I’m pretty sure she’d be proud of me, Zaynie. A pioneer in the art of the hand massage.”

“Oh, I see how it is, it’s an art now.”

“Zayn, we’re both artists,” Harry gestures between them excitedly, “Twins.”

“Sure, babe,” he flashes one of his crinkle eyed grins at Harry as they walk into the ice cream shop. Harry was so excited about it when they had to move to the new apartment he went to it every day for a week but he hasn’t been back since.

They’re mid-way through a debate over ice cream flavors [Zayn can’t stop giving Harry shit for wanting plain vanilla] when they hear Conor calling to them from the back of the shop.

They both wave but make no effort to step closer to where he’s sitting with Melanie. He turns back to Melanie after watching them a moment, leaning close together over an ice cream cone. Harry and Zayn exchange a glance just before ordering.

Harry pays for them both grabbing Zayn’s hand when he tries to get his own wallet out. Zayn doesn’t move away when their fingers interlock just keeps telling a story about making homemade ice cream as a kid with his cousins. He pulls Harry over to a table near the window.

Harry’s talking about Gemma’s new fashion blog and he doesn’t realize Zayn’s been staring at his lips until he leans forward and presses his lips to the corner of his mouth. Harry blinks once noticing Conor and Melanie passing them to go out the door. They both wave as the two of them go out the door.

“Sorry,” Zayn says and Harry sees the pink in his cheeks, the tips of his ears.

“No, don’t worry, good save,” he says gesturing with his head to the door Melanie and Conor just left through. He’s sure that’s all Zayn is doing—proving the point.

But when Zayn mutters something under his breath before taking another bite of ice cream, he starts to wonder if he’s been misreading everything all along.

///

It’s possibly the biggest day of Zayn’s career and he’s so nervous he’s gone outside to smoke two cigarettes before 7 a.m. and now pouring coffee he can’t keep his hands from shaking.

“Can I see the final?” Louis asks walking into the kitchen in his own work clothes, nearly startling Zayn enough to spill coffee on himself.

“Fuck, you can’t just sneak up on me,” he says going back to pouring it in his mug. He used to survive on Red Bull when he had to be up early but somewhere along the way he’d transitioned to coffee.

“Sorry, but, really can I see it?”

“Yeah it’s on the table,” Zayn nods behind him.

“Sick,” he can hear Louis moving things around on the table, “So, it’s the inside of brain, yeah?”

Zayn turns to face him, leaning back against the counter, “Yeah, sorta. The client is looking to do, like, a PSA of sorts about the beauty of street art so it’s an illustration of their ideas, yeah? Like, they don’t want to vandalize shit or whatever—it’s about the art.”

“Literally in their brains. It’s so sick, Zayn. I can’t imagine anyone not falling in love with it,” Louis says without looking up.

“Yeah, well, we’ll see,” Zayn tries to smile but he finds his lips forgetting how so he takes a sip of coffee instead.

“What the fuck is this?”

“What’s what?” Zayn looks at his phone and the texts from his sisters about his pitch.

“This. Is it a look inside _your_ brain?,” is Louis’ response and Zayn rolls his eyes as he turns to him before realizing he’s picked up a different drawing from the table.

“No, it’s nothing,” he says quickly crossing the kitchen as Louis pulls the thick paper back holding it in his hands. Zayn had been working on it again because he couldn’t sleep the night before and he’d forgotten to put it away. Clearly.

“Nothing? Zayn, correct me if I’m wrong here but this looks like a very detailed drawing of a boy I know. Hey, wait, I think maybe you do too?” Louis grins and Zayn can feel his cheeks turning pink.

“Louis.”

“Don’t _Louis_ me. Tell me why you have a drawing of Harry sleeping and if you are also working on one of me and your other ‘just friends’.”

“I—“

“Actually, I’ll tell you why. You are head over heels for one of your best friends and the only way you can express that besides, you know, saying the fucking words is drawing creepy pictures.”

“It’s not creepy.”

‘That’s what you got out what I just said?” Louis is waving the drawing around now.

“Keep your voice down, Haz is sleeping,” Zayn takes a step closer to snatch the drawing back, slotting it between his fingers and letting it hang by his side.

“Maybe he should wake up and hear this,” Louis says in a fierce whisper but a whisper at the very least, “because neither one of you is saying what you should be saying to each other. You’re out here drawing stalker pictures and if Harry talks about you one more time, I’m gonna glue his mouth shut.”

“Louis. It’s—“

“Honestly, Zayn, if you’re going to say it’s nothing or your just close, I’m gluing your mouth shut too.”

“Stop doing this. You know what the situation is and you keep trying to make it something bigger, Lou.”

“The situation is proving a point, yeah? Do you even remember the point you were trying to make anymore? If you want to convince Conor you’re perfectly happy and together, mission accomplished, Z. Next up, prove to the rest of the world you’re both happy being just friends.”

“We are happy as friends, I don’t know how to prove that to you.”

“Bullshit,” Louis grips the back of the chair closest to him, “It’s bullshit and you know it. Just fucking go for it Zayn. For once in your life just do it.”

Zayn shakes his head and turns around to grab for his coffee. Louis isn’t even attacking him—his voice is calm and even; its just Louis looking out for his boys.

Halfway to the mug he spins on his heel to face him again, “I can’t Louis. No, listen to me,” he says when Louis opens his mouth again, “I can’t make it real or take it further or whatever you think is going on because I can’t hurt Harry. He hasn’t ever done anything serious and I know what serious ends with—it ends with a broken heart. It always fucking does. And I won’t do that to him. He’s my best friend, Lou. That’s more important than anything else a relationship could give me.”

 “If he’s your best friend,” Louis comes around the table standing in front of Zayn, “then stop leading him one.”

“I’m not. He knows what we’re doing is a game or whatever.”

“Yeah? Does he? Last time I checked he acts the same way around you as you do around him. Which is, to say, a lovesick bunny. I would be willing to bet money he feels the exact way you do and he’s too chicken shit to say something because he thinks he’s protecting you too.”

“Protecting me?” It’s the first thing Louis says that he’s genuinely surprised by rather than defensive.

“Yes, fuck. Why am I the only one who sees this?” he throws his arms out to the side as Zayn crosses his over his chest. “He’s scared of relationships, Zayn. You’ve known that as long as you’ve known him. What’s to say he’s too scared tell you he wants more because he doesn’t think he’s capable of it. And meanwhile you don’t want to break his heart. Do you see how fucked up all of this is? You’re so busy protecting each other from each other you don’t see what’s right in front of you. He doesn’t think he can do a relationship and he’s practically in one. You don’t want to break his heart because why? You’ve been so disenchanted by assholes before? Well, walk away from the pretend boyfriend game and tell him to go back to being your best friend without the added fluff. Let me know if it doesn’t break his fucking heart.”

“You’re,” Zayn swallows and takes an involuntary step backwards when he feels like he’s losing his balance, “You’re wrong, Louis.”

“No, Zaynie,” Louis sighs and scrubs his hands over his face, “I’m not. Liam is my best friend, Zayn, we’re just friends too—do you ever think he and I are together?”

“Stop it,” Zayn turns around fully grabbing his mug and snapping the travel lid on, “You’re trying to make this into something it’s not. We’re the same as we always are and if that looks like we’re together than I guess that’s a misconception we’ll keep fighting,” he sets the coffee on the table and starts gathering his work into his portfolio.

“You know, I’ve never felt an age difference in the three of us. But this? This bullshit makes me think you and Harry are both about sixteen years old. I’m not coming home tonight, if you want to get your head out of you ass and actually do something.”

“Oh my god, Louis, you honestly need to shut up,” Zayn looks up at him with his jaw set, his mouth in a thin line.

“Right, I will, just one more thing—tell Harry how you feel or drop the fucking game. I’m sick of waiting to see who all of this hurts first. If you want to be protective, that’s great but my money is on Harry being the one to break. You’re proving a point but he’s trying to help you in a territory he’s never fucking been.”

“I would, I would never hurt—“ Zayn tents his pointer finger and thumb over his nose because that, _that_ is the last thing he would ever to do to Harry.

“I’m going to work,” Louis grabs his bag and slings it over his shoulder, “Think about what I said.”

“I’m going to make sure Harry’s still asleep and your yell-whispering didn’t wake him up,” he realizes too late it’s a sentence playing into everything Louis has just told him.

“I thought so,” he smirks and turns for the door, “You know,” he has his hand on the door but looks over to Zayn, “I’ve always said you and Harry are like my brothers. If you noticed, neither one of you has ever said that about each other. I’m willing to bet it’s not because you aren’t as close but because of something a lot bigger,” he raises his eyebrows, “Just saying. Good luck with the pitch, Zayn.” And then, he’s out the door shutting it softly behind him.

“Fuck,” Zayn breathes the world, “Fuck, fuck, fuck,” he whispers a little louder into the silence of the apartment. He checks his watch once before going to Harry’s room.

He pushes the door open to find Harry sprawled over the bed like he’s trying to touch all four corners. He has his fist wrapped tight around the pillow under his head. He watches his chest rise and fall for a moment, notices the slight upturn of his lips while he sleeps almost like he’s about to smile. He wonders if anyone’s ever told him—that he radiates happiness even when he’s not conscious. He almost jumps when Harry starts blinking awake and looking at him with sleepy eyes.

“Hi,” Harry whispers.

“Hey,” Zayn says just as softly mostly because he doesn’t want to readily admit he was hovering and watching Harry sleep.

“Good luck today, Zaynie,” Harry smiles slowly, still half asleep with Zayn’s project the first thing on his mind.

“Thanks, babe,” Zayn smirks and starts backing out of the room, “I’ll see you tonight, yeah?”

“See you tonight,” he agrees letting his eyes flutter closed again as Zayn pulls the door closed.

-

Zayn tries to call Harry during lunch but he doesn’t answer so he goes outside to smoke instead.

“Awesome job, dude,” one of the junior creative directors grabs his arm as he passes and Zayn can only smile and nod. He still hasn’t processed all that’s happened. “You coming out to celebrate tonight?”

“Not sure, man, I’ll let you know,” Zayn smirks and it’s not exactly a lie. It’s just that he wants to spend the night with Harry and maybe see if they can meet Liam and Niall for a drink or something. It feels like something to share with the people closest to him. The way the directors were giddy with excitement as he shared the idea and throwing around words like “extended series” and “bonus”. The kind of moments he knows his friends will truly appreciate rather than just another excuse to celebrate with a co-worker.

Zayn keeps walking out to the front of the building and leans against the wall, lets his head fall back on the cold bricks as he takes the first inhale from his cigarette.

“Zayn, dude, what’s up?” He exhales and tips his head towards the sound to see Conor walking up from the sidewalk. He never sees him just walking down the street but of course today, of all days, he’s standing right there.

“How’s it going, Con?”

Somewhere along the line Conor and Melanie have stopped asking to hangout with him and Harry and he’s been too happy to wonder why.

“Pretty good, pretty good,” he slides his hands in his pockets looking the kind of nervous Zayn has never seen across his features. “Um, I guess just wanted to apologize? I mean, obviously I was doubting you and Harry from the beginning.”

Zayn takes a moment to suck smoke in his lungs before asking, “What’s changed?”

“I was talking about it with Melanie last night, actually,” he smiles a little and, not for the first time, Zayn figures Melanie might be the best thing to happen to Conor. “You guys just seem to get each other, you know? Like every time I see you together it’s like there’s no one else in the room. I’ve never seen two people focus so fully on each other. Honestly, you’re bad couple friends because you love each other so damn much.”

Zayn’s mouth has gone dry and he can’t remember how to put words together so he just nods once instead.

“Dude, don’t look so scared,” Conor grips his shoulder with something like a friendly smile and it’s all so unfamiliar, Zayn nearly shakes him off. “It’s a good thing. It’s like you guys smile at each other and the world makes sense for you, you know? Just—it’s genuine happiness, or at least that’s what I think it is. Melanie worded it better and I’ll have to ask her because it sounded like a poem when she said it. Anyways—are you listening to me?’

Zayn swallows and nods, his mind seemingly miles away, “Yeah, of course. Thanks for saying that—it’s, uh, nice to hear.”

“You sure you’re good? You look sick,” Conor laughs smacking his hand on Zayn’s shoulder again before taking a step back.

“I’m good, really,” Zayn tries to smile dropping his cigarette to the ground and stepping on it soundly, “I have to get back to work though. See you around, yeah?”

“Sure thing. You and Harry can come over anytime you want. We still like you guys,” he laughs like they’re old friends and Zayn just nods again before offering a quick wave and heading back for the building without a backward glance.

Inside and walking to his studio, he has Conor’s words echoing in his head. Somewhere along the way Louis’ words start pouring in too and he wants to shut his whole brain off.

With the biggest project of his career off to digital production he decides to fuck off the next couple of hours with the one thing that truly shuts his mind off—drawing. And if it’s to finish the shading on a sketch of Harry sleeping on the couch from a couple of weeks ago, no one needs to know.

++

Harry’s balancing grocery bags in both hands when he hears his phone ringing but when he gets in the apartment he’s forgotten it was going off in the first place.

He spent the better part of the afternoon, after his classes, deciding if he wanted to bake Zayn a cake or cupcakes to celebrate his project. Harry didn’t know for sure his pitch had been picked up but he had more than a nagging feeling. [There was also the memory of his mom always making cupcakes when he was doing something big as a kid— _win or lose you’ll still want cupcakes, darling_.]

When he slides the pan in the oven he remembers to check his phone to see a missed call from Zayn. He’s sure he’s too busy to answer his phone now so he doesn’t call him back but assumes it has to be a good sign. Zayn is not the kind of person to call with bad news—Harry usually pulls it out in bits and pieces.

He walks in circles around the apartment waiting for the cupcakes to be cool enough to frost with his homemade frosting. He made it from scratch in yellow and blue because he wanted it to be like Batman without involving black frosting to stain his teeth but realizes about halfway through it looks like he’s decorating for a baby shower. He jumps when he hears the door unlocking and realizes it’s already nearly time for dinner.

It takes Harry a second to take in Zayn’s full outfit when he walks in shutting the door behind him. He hadn’t noticed when Zayn came into his room that morning but it’s enough to catch his attention now. He’s wearing a white collared shirt--the sleeves rolled up to showcase his tattoos, with his usual black jeans and boots and his hair in lazy waves. It’s enough to take Harry’s breath away—but, then again, he always feels that way about Zayn.

“Hi, Haz,” Zayn sets his bag on a kitchen chair and comes over to the counter where Harry’s baby shower cupcakes are set up. He’s still looking at Zayn, realizing he looks like he’d be a teacher but the hot one all the kids freak out about because he’s devastatingly attractive and—

“How’d it go?” Harry sets the knife down sliding around the side of the counter before Zayn can even get out the words, “They picked it”, fully. He wraps around Zayn and rocks him back and forth laughing and squeezing him tight.

“I’m so proud of you,” Harry pulls away when he starts to feel like he wants to hold on forever. He still stays close to Zayn, though. “Seriously.”

“Is that why you made cupcakes?” Zayn’s nose scrunches when he smiles and takes a bit of frosting off the top of one with his finger.

“I figured, whatever happens, cupcakes can never be a bad thing,” Harry averts his eyes when Zayn licks the frosting off of his finger because it’s a little too much for him to handle.

“Means a lot, Harry,” he smiles and drops his eyes to the counter.

“What’s up?” Harry grips the edge of the counter sensing something besides cupcake adoration in the kitchen.

++

Zayn looks up with a smirk tugging at the corner of his lips before settling back to blank. The only thing he thought about coming home was talking to Harry about what Conor had said. He needs Harry to reassure him—help him get away from the screaming in his mind.

“Funny thing, actually,” Zayn runs his hand over the countertop, pushing a few stray crumbs to the ground.

“You don’t make it sound so funny,” Harry leans on the counter propping his chin on his fist, his eyes wide and questioning. He’s so close, Zayn can see the way his eyelashes have gone blonde on the edges and darker towards the middle. He briefly finds it funny he’s not noticed up to now.

“I just ran into Conor and he basically said he was wrong,” he licks his lip, “Like, about us.”

“He knows we aren’t together?” Zayn finds his genuine concern endearing.

“No, the opposite, actually. He thinks we’re really good together,” he pauses wondering how far to go with rehashing exactly what Conor had said, leaving Louis’ words out completely, “He said we just seem really genuine and focused on each other. Some other stuff, um, basically we’re really bad couple friends because we’re _too_ into each other.”

Harry smiles at that but he looks nervous too which only spurs Zayn’s nerves into action further.

“But, like, he probably just said that because we’re best friends, yeah? Of course we’re genuine together it doesn’t mean we’re in love,” he shakes his head, “I mean, I do love you because you’re my best friend but I haven’t really thought—“

His words are cut off when Harry leans up from the counter and presses a kiss to his lips, slow and soft before slipping back and blinking at Zayn a couple of times.

“Sorry, you were talking so fast it was scaring me,” Harry says biting his lip and glancing down, Zayn can see the gentle flush on his neck.

“Don’t,” Zayn licks his bottom lip moving a step closer to Harry, “Don’t be sorry.”

Slow as anything, he places his hand to Harry’s neck, rubbing his thumb along his jaw slowly—reminiscent of when they smoke together except how in every way this feels so much more important.

Harry watches him, his lips parted. Zayn leans in until his lips are pressing to Harry’s again. Both of their mouths moving together, a little deeper than Harry’s kiss, Zayn holding his face steady with his hand. When their lips are touching, the buzz in Zayn’s mind dull—as he pulls away his eyes search Harry’s face as the questions start to slide in.

Zayn lifts his eyebrows at Harry in a silent question and, as usual, Harry knows what he’s saying without words.

“Yeah, yes,” Harry nods then, moving to face Zayn fully as he reaches to hold his head as their lips press together all over again, pressing their chests together as Zayn’s arms hang by his sides.

Harry’s the first to lick against Zayn’s bottom lip until he can slide his tongue in his mouth, twisting his tongue in wicked circles that make it hard to remember to breathe. Zayn’s eyes flutter shut when Harry moves his lips to his jaw, biting lightly.

It happens in a rush—his mind catching to his body but when it does it feels like a match has been lit. He slides his hands up under Harry’s shirt, tracing his fingertips to his back and sinking in as Harry bites down his neck, detouring back up to pull at Zayn’s earring with his teeth. The light pull sends a low lick of fire in his belly and the only thing left on his mind is tasting Harry.

He rolls his hands to hold Harry’s hips walking him backwards until he thumps back against the wall. He pulls his face up from Zayn’s neck to kiss his lips again, laughing against him until Zayn sinks his teeth into his bottom lip—sending the laugh into a little more helpless of a sound.

He kisses Harry hard then, dirty as he rolls his hips forward against him, lifting the bottom of his shirt and dragging his fingertips just behind the hem. He rucks it up over his chest and Harry takes it from him lifting it off as Zayn grabs him around his ribs, biting at the birds on his chest and licking down the center of his chest. He kisses over his heartbeat, feeling the rapid rise and fall of his chest as he traces ink with lips and tongue. He runs his teeth over Harry’s nipple just slightly, smiling at the tease of a moan from Harry’s lips. He bites down harder just to hear the breath escape his chest completely. Harry pulls Zayn’s shirt out from where it’s tucked in, his hands traveling the planes of Zayn’s stomach and his hands unhook the button on Zayn’s jeans.

Zayn bites down on his skin under his ear coming back to Harry’s face to kiss him as he starts to undo the buttons on Zayn’s shirt starting from the bottom.

“Fuckin’ fuck,” Harry whispers and Zayn pulls back just slightly.

“What, babe?”

Harry grins then, jerking one of the buttons on Zayn’s shirt. “Stuck,” he mumbles as Zayn takes it from his hands undoing the remaining buttons with quick fingers and laughing at Harry as he pouts.

“No more, no more,” Harry grabs Zayn’s hands, “Let me.”

He twists until Zayn’s back is to the wall sliding the shirt off of his shoulders. He presses his lips to match perfectly with the ones inked on the center of Zayn’s collarbones. Zayn tries to catch his breath feeling the slow movements of Harry’s tongue against his stomach working lower and lower as his hands push Zayn’s hips back against the wall.

“I’ve wanted this—fuck,” Harry breathes dropping to his knees and working on Zayn’s zipper, “for so long.”

He can’t find words as Harry pulls his jeans off and mouths wetly through his boxers with his wide green eyes looking up at him.

“You’re so pretty,” Zayn mumbles, shrugging the shirt from where it was stuck on his wrists, winding his fingers in Harry’s hair, “So goddamn pretty.”

Harry grins hooking his thumbs in Zayn’s boxers and sliding them down to his ankles. Zayn’s head falls back when Harry strokes him slowly thumbing over the head of his cock before replacing his finger with his tongues circling slowly. Zayn’s hips move forward slightly and Harry pushes them back against the wall, the motion of pushing Zayn back matching up with him filling his mouth with cock simultaneously.

Zayn’s hands tighten in his hair as Harry drags his mouth up him slowly and back down suddenly. His tongue twisting in ways that make Zayn’s knees shake and his breathing erratic. He curves his neck to watch Harry take him, his pink lips stretched and his eyes still looking up at Zayn.

“So good, baby,” Zayn strokes his cheek as he moves up and down and Harry moans at the praise before closing his eyes and moving his head in earnest.

“Mm,” Harry jerks his head up without taking his mouth off Zayn’s dick over the little sound. He squeezes Zayn’s hips once more before pointedly dropping his hands behind his back, clasping them together.

“Oh fuck,” Zayn bites his lips as he realizes what Harry wants. He takes two handfuls of his hair to hold him and starts to jerk his hips into his mouth, losing his senses and getting the deep burning sensation in the bottom of his stomach when Harry moans around his hollowed cheeks.

“M’gonna come, babe,” Zayn warns and Harry nods the best he can as Zayn pounds into his mouth, feels the fluttering in the back of his throat as Harry squeezes his eyes shut. Over a breath of curses and Harry’s name, Zayn spills deep into his throat, biting his lip until it bleeds as Harry ungrasps his hands to milk it from Zayn, until slowing completely.

Zayn falls to his knees in front of Harry, pulling his face in and kissing him. Harry slides his tongue in Zayn’s mouth and he can taste himself but more than that he can taste Harry. He runs his hands up Harry’s back feeling the beginning of sweat. He reaches between them and runs his hands over the front of Harry’s jeans, his cock bulging in the fabric. He goes to unsnap his jeans when Harry pulls back panting.

“Want you to,” he gulps for air, wiping the back of his hand across his mouth.

“What, love?” Zayn presses their foreheads together, still holding the top of Harry’s jeans with his fingers tucked just inside, “What do you want?”

“Fuck me,” Harry connects green to hazel as he says the words, biting his lip in the way Zayn couldn’t say no to, even if he wanted. “Want you to fuck me.”

Zayn leans forward and his teeth take Harry’s lip dragging slowly followed by a fast kiss, all tongue and little being held back. “Okay,” he presses one more fast kiss to Harry’s lips, “Here?”

“M’bed,” Harry’s fingertips trace Zayn’s sides slowly and he gasps when Zayn wraps his hand around his length through his jeans, squeezing just slightly.

“You got stuff?” Harry nods, his mouth dropping open as Zayn runs his thumb over his jeans, “Come on, then.”

He stands and pulls Harry up from the floor kissing him again and walking him backwards down the hall to his bedroom. Over the darkening of his eyes and his flushed face, Harry manages a laugh when Zayn navigates them into the wall approximately four times.

“Sorry, sorry,” he mumbles against Harry’s lips until he can push him down onto his bed.

“Where do you keep your condoms?” Zayn asks pursing his lips and glance around.

“You’re hot,” Harry says from lying on the bed, his lips spread over a wide grin.

“Thanks, love,” Zayn smiles at him and Harry cackles just a bit.

“That too but, like, in relation to my sex stash.”

Zayn’s eyebrows shoot up at the idea of a stash but he reaches his arms out, he’ll always be the first to play Harry’s games. He takes a step toward his dresser and Harry laughs.

“Cold,” he says followed by “Hot,” as Zayn takes a step towards his nightstand.

“You’re awful,” Zayn laughs going for the nightstand directly, the obvious place, and pulls out a handful of condoms and a bottle of lube and tossing it to Harry on the bed. Harry laughs and starts unbuttoning his jeans, Zayn crawls up the bed, straddling his hips as Harry wiggles under him and kicks off his jeans completely.

“Hi,” Zayn says smiling slowly down at him and Harry grins.

“Hello, Zaynie.”

Zayn’s eyes curl into half moons over a smile as he leans forward to kiss Harry, grabbing his hands and pressing them back up by his head. He pulls back to look down at him, and Harry bites his lip and blinks with heavy eyelids.

“I meant what I said,” he says it slowly, as Zayn’s eyes travel down his face across his chest, “I want you to fuck me.”

Zayn barks out a laugh and bites his neck, “Heard you the first, second and now, third time.”

“Just checking,” Harry swallows and jerks his hips up into Zayn.

Zayn puts pressure back into his hands as he grinds down on Harry, his own dick nudging in interest when Harry whines.

“You’re kind of desperate, babe,” Zayn smiles biting over Harry’s nipple but keeping his hands pushed down.

“A lot desperate,” Harry breathes over a whine when Zayn laughs against his skin and the rush of air tickles him.

“I’ve got you, babe,” Zayn scoots down the bed letting his hands go, kissing down Harry’s stomach and swirling his tongue over his inked hip bones, sucking a deep purpling mark over one of the laurels.

He slides off his boxers tossing them somewhere over his shoulder as he leans up on his arms to look at Harry fully. He keeps his hands pressing his hips down as his eyes roam over his naked body. Living with Harry means seeing Harry naked more often than not but never with his pupils blown out, the flush down his chest as he squirms under Zayn’s glance, his eyes closing when Zayn looks down at his cock. He’s thicker than Zayn and already leaving messy wet splotches on his belly. Harry’s hands trace gentle patterns up Zayn’s arms as he looks up at him, still as touchy as ever.

“Please, do something,” Harry breaths the words as he tries to jerk his hips up against Zayn’s hands. He leans down and kisses him then, he looks so deeply concerned, his eyebrows pulling together in a way Zayn can only describe as cute.

He slides his hands down to the outsides of Harry’s thighs and noses at his cock before licking under the head, tasting the splatter of pre come. Harry’s hips shoot up at the gentle licks but stills when Zayn digs his fingertips into the meat of his thighs. He mouths gently over the head of his cock, before pulling him fully into his mouth as Harry writhes around on the bed, arms flailing.

“I can’t Zayn,” Harry pulls on Zayn’s hair lightly when he hollows his cheeks, “I’ll come, please, please, fuck me.”

Zayn pulls off his cock and shakes his head down at him while he smirks, Harry’s more than he could have imagined. Responsive and sensitive in everyway.

“Flip over, love,” Zayn says and Harry does so quickly, pulling up onto all fours without being asked.

“Good boy,” Zayn murmurs and Harry keens at the words making Zayn smile.

 Zayn runs his hands down the long lines of his back, thumbing at the dimples in his back and watching the chills all over his pale skin. He leans down to sink his teeth into the cheek of his ass, watching where the skin turns white and then red from his teeth. Another bite follows by a wild huff of air from Harry as he presses back. Zayn can’t make him wait as he uses his thumbs to finally pull him apart, letting his tongue lick wet and dirty over his puckered hole.

 “Fuck, Zayn,” Harry collapses onto his forearms easily as Zayn licks over him again and again. He sinks his teeth gently into the rim of muscle and Harry moans, deep and low in his throat. “Please,” he whispers and Zayn obliges, sliding one finger into the first knuckle, his eyes widening at how quickly he can push in all the way. He slides another finger in next to the first and Harry slides his legs apart further, babbling in coherently as Zayn fucks in and out of him. He scissors his fingers and licks his tongue between them until he can feel Harry shaking under him. He curls his fingers up hitting the deepest spot of Harry and he falls to the bed with a yelp.

“Sorry,” he scrambles back up to his knees and Zayn can’t help but push a kiss to his back.

“You’re good, love,” he says reaching for the lube. He drizzles enough to add a third finger in Harry until he’s all but quivering, begging Zayn with, _I’m ready, please, babe, please._

Zayn grabs one of the condoms pulling his hand out of Harry and wiping it on the bed as he opens the package.

“You’re alright,” he says softly as Harry pushes his hips back at the emptiness, his hair dropping low over his face, “You’re so good, baby,” he murmurs rolling the condom down his cock and adding even more lube.

“You ready?” he asks one more time, his cock nudging at Harry’s hole.

“Yes, fuckin’ shit, Zayn,” Harry all but yells, almost laughing if he wasn’t feeling so tightly wound up.

“Alright, alright,” Zayn smirks guiding himself into Harry. He squeezes his eyes at the wet hot of Harry pulling him further in as he pushes his hips back to meet Zayn.

“Good, m’good,” Harry says before Zayn can ask when he’s pushed fully in.

He watches Harry’s hands grapple for the sheets underneath him as Zayn starts to move, his fingers turning white around his rings. He still moves slowly at first, watching where their bodies connect until Harry is grinding back down on him, panting out words that don’t make sense. Zayn reaches forward for a handful of Harry’s hair, pulling his head up by it and smiles at the desperate sound Harry makes when he tugs it again. It makes sense, petting Harry’s hair as always made him go soft and pliant while pulling it only spurs him on further.

“Look at you, Haz,” Zayn says with one hand still in his hair the other guiding his hip.

“Zaynie, I need,” Harry whimpers, his head dropping forward pulling his own hair with Zayn’s hand, “Please, touch.”

“I’ve got you, babe,” Zayn mutters against his back letting go of his hair and reaching under him to grip Harry’s cock hot and heavy in his hand, the weight of it noticeable as Zayn squeezes.

He jerks him tight and quick as he fucks into him and Harry’s lost all sense of speech, babbling over moans, knuckles white in the sheets as Zayn grinds his teeth down, colors brighter than he knows flashing behind his eyelids. Zayn lifts his head to kiss Harry’s shoulder, feeling his cock jerk at the same time his body squeezes around Zayn, dripping down his hand as Zayn continues to pump him slowly until Harry whimpers at the sensitivity collapsing down flat on his front, trapping Zayn’s hand.

He taps Harry’s ass until he lifts his hips so Zayn can take his hand back and get off the bed. He grabs for a towel from Harry’s dirty clothes, making him roll over to wipe his belly and at his own hand before tossing it back.

All the while, Harry keeps his eyes closed with a blissed out grin across his faces.

“You look high as a kite,” Zayn mumbles climbing on the bed and untangling the sheet to pull it loosely over them.

‘”You’re fucking beautiful Zayn Malik, I really mean that,” Harry says, opening his eyes and looking over at Zayn.

“You too, pretty boy,” Zayn smiles before his eyes drop closed, too tired to say anything more, his very bones feeling like they’ve been smashed together in the best kind of way.

++

When Harry opens his eyes again he’s not sure how much time has passed other than by the darkness out his window, the lights of the walkway in front the apartment filtering in. His arm is slung over Zayn with his head resting on the wings on his chest. He slides his hand under his mouth as he lifts his head, thankful to find he hasn’t drooled all over Zayn already.

He thinks he could be perfectly content to lay his head back down on Zayn and stay there forever. If things like bladders and stomachs didn’t exist, he’s more than positive he’d do just that. Instead, he presses a kiss to the card tattoo over Zayn’s ribs and crawls over him and off the bed.

He pulls on his briefs glancing over at Zayn before he walks out, the gentle rise and fall of his chest with his hand thrown back over his head. As beautiful as the art he creates, Harry thinks and then rolls his eyes because _who has he become?_

Washing his hands, he thinks back to the raw energy of being with Zayn, how Zayn knew what to do to him to drive him wild without asking. How he read him naked in his bed just as easily as he does when Harry’s just sitting on the couch lost in his own thoughts. He made Harry slow down, made it more than just physical sensations with his words and lips—nothing like what Harry’s used to.

Going back towards his room, he finds himself smiling and he tries to rearrange his face into something less. He’s not an idiot. He knows sex doesn’t change things, solve problems or answer questions. He promises himself he won’t get his hope up for anything more than one night; he’ll slide back into bed, probably attempt to count Zayn’s eyelashes and try to commit this night with his Greek god of best friend to his memory and—

“Hey, babe.”

Harry grabs at his chest looking to where Zayn is still laying on his back on the bed but with a pair of Harry’s sweats low on his hips.

“Fuck, I thought you were asleep,” Harry says with his hand still over his heart, trying to catch his breath.

“Surprise,” Zayn grins scooting over to the side of the bed where Harry had been laying, “C’mere, love.”

Harry all but skips across the room trying to keep the stupid grin from bursting off his face. His breath catches when he sees his ring laying flat against Zayn’s chest. He hadn’t noticed it earlier but now it’s staring right at him—a blatant reminder of everything they’re doing and proving. He swallows and lies back on the bed leaving a gap of room between him and Zayn. It’s always easy with Zayn but he’s suddenly feeling stilted with the sensation of not knowing what to do.

“Why are you so far? have I ever bitten you?” Zayn laughs before closing the space and rolling on his side, propping up on his elbow to look down at Harry, making him feel something else completely.

“Uh, yeah, actually,” Harry points at the purpling mark under his ear and another down by the tattoos on his hips, “I don’t mind though,” he adds quickly.

“Good,” Zayn presses a kiss to his lips as his hand strays back into Harry’s hair. So different from before, almost gentle now, as he runs his hands back through his curls while their lips move together; soft bites and gently lashes of their tongues back and forth. Harry takes back when he said he could lay with Zayn forever—no, he could let Zayn tangle his hand in his hair while they kiss for much longer. Zayn’s the first to pull away, kissing Harry’s forehead once and flopping back on his back. “What time is it?” he asks scratching at Harry’s arm lightly.

“Time for food, all the food.” Harry rolls and pushes up over Zayn reaching for his phone on the nightstand. He yelps when Zayn pinches his nipple as it passes over his face.

“That’s not the sound you made earlier,” Zayn smirks followed by full on laughter when Harry scowls at him as he moves back to his side of the bed, “And you look like a puppy when you think you look angry.”

“Alright, alright, I get it,” Harry yells even though he’s laughing now too, “Things wrong with Harry.”

“I can tell you all the lovely things too,” Zayn says softly and Harry tries to pretend he can hear the teasing in his tone even though he sounds completely sincere. He doesn’t think he can handle a sincere Zayn for one night when he wants nothing more than that everyday and—he needs to stop.

“It’s already eleven, should we order food?” he says sitting cross-legged and acting like he didn’t hear Zayn, “Wait where’s Louis? Did he die?”

Zayn laughs, his tongue pressing behind his teeth, “No, he’s just doing something tonight. If he was dead and we didn’t notice until now—I’m pretty sure he’d come back for us.”

“Sounds about right,” Harry shakes his head, “Do you want pizza? I think that’s all we can get this late without leaving.”

“Of course I do, Haz,” Zayn sits up pressing his bare chest against Harry’s arms as he watches him order with the app over his shoulder.

-

They end up staying in bed for the rest of the night, eating pizza and just talking. Not talking about Big Things but just the random little things.

The one time they leave is to sit on the balcony wrapped in Harry’s duvet while Zayn smokes. Harry had sat down in the chair opposite Zayn originally before Zayn had rolled his eyes and climbed in his lap instead and Harry wrapped his arms around him. Harry tried to hide it when he smiled into Zayn’s neck as he pulled the dark blue cover up both of their shoulders.

Harry can do this, he decides. It’s as easy and as normal as always except for their various states of being undressed. He does need to keep reminding himself it’s a temporary bubble, though—a lapse in playing pretend. If he didn’t keep pressing against the marks Zayn made on him, there’s a chance he would think the whole thing was a dream.

++

He doesn’t notice Zayn watching him when he presses the mark under his ear for the third time in the middle of his story but it makes Zayn smile over his cigarette. Zayn who has wanted to leave his mark on Harry for so long, take him apart and put him back together and it’s finally happened. He knows there’s more to discuss and do—he gets it. But, still, he’s not going to drag up The Big Details in the middle of a night so clearly untainted.

Maybe, he thinks, he won’t have to say anything at all. Maybe Harry wants everything he wants and they can transition from fake boyfriends to real ones overnight, easy as that. But when they walk inside from the balcony as the sky starts to lighten for the first time he sees the hesitant look on Harry’s face—indecision to go to his own room or not. Zayn’s know then it’s going to take more than sex to get things right between them.

He meets Harry in the middle, pressing their chests together as he kisses him slowly, twirling his tongue against his for a moment. Something inside him softens irreparably when he feels Harry’s smile against his lips. When Zayn pulls back he takes Harry’s hand and leads him back to his room, pushing him down on his bed. He crawls in after him, curling behind him and leaving soft kisses on the back of his neck, whispering goodnight against his skin.

He promises to talk to him in the morning—he can’t leave Harry wondering any longer as much as he can’t do it to himself. As he listens to Harry’s gentle breathing all he can hope for, wish for, is Harry to want the same things too.

++

Harry thinks he could get used to waking up and not immediately wanting to throw someone out of his bed. He’s shifted in the night to facing Zayn and Zayn has shifted to somehow press his face against Harry’s neck. He can feel the slow pulses of air from his nose against his skin and it almost tickles. Zayn’s arms are wrapped around Harry, holding their bodies close together and it makes Harry smile. He’s not the only one who wants to be closer in his sleep--Zayn’s clinging to him too.

There’s still a swirling feeling in his stomach, the questions mushing with the feelings and suddenly leaving him more confused than comfortable. He scoots back a bit, gripping Zayn’s wrist to make sure he doesn’t fall forward and settles him on Harry’s pillow. He readjusts the sheet over Zayn, still wearing Harry’s sweats and sleeping like a rock, as per usual.

He grabs his phone and the empty pizza box at the foot of the bed heading for the kitchen. He doesn’t make it a habit to call his sister every time he has sex but he hasn’t actually called in a few days so, really, it’s perfectly reasonable. He leans against the counter as the call connects, flipping the lid of the pizza box up and down.

He makes sure to ask Gemma about her new blog first when she answers—he already feels guilty for not looking at it more often. She answers his questions without much elaboration and changes the topic to Zayn before he can—it shouldn’t surprise him as much as it does.

“ _So, how’s it going? Still playing house?”_

“Gems, it’s not playing house, we live together,” he’s only explained The Situation to her ten different times, making her swear each time to never tell their mom. Anne wants nothing more than Harry to find someone and he couldn’t stand to get her hopes up with his current mess.

_“Details. Are you still pretending to be together?”_

“Well, technically, yeah. But last night things might have changed?” he starts scratching at the laurels on his hips, one of many nervous tics.

_“Oh god, how?”_

He’s definitely not telling his sister exactly how, “Just like he came home from work and he got really good news about a project and then we were talking about Conor, that’s his ex, and he basically told him Zayn thought we were good together and we have good chemistry and some stuff about love and then—“

“Love? L-o-v-e, love?” she interrupts him.

“No, the other kind,” he rolls his eyes, “yes, l-o-v-e, love.”

“ _Like, he’s in love with you, then?”_ she sounds more excited than Harry would have anticipated.

“Well, no that’s not what he said. More like, he obviously loves me because we’re best friends.”

_“Harry, that’s—no. L-o-v-e, love is different than l-u-v, luv. Which one did he mean?”_

“Uh, we were talking face to face not particularly spelling out our fucking words,” he pulls his eyebrows together; she’s being ridiculous.

_“If he said he loves you like a friend that’s l-u-v whereas l-o-v-e is romantic love, soul mate love—“_

“Oh my god, I actually hate you right now. What are you even trying to tell me?”

“ _I think he friend loves you. Unless, did he say something after saying you were best friends?”_

“Uh, I—I might have cut him off,” he closes his eyes and grabs a fistful of his own hair.

“ _You kissed him, didn’t you_?” It’s scary how well she can read him sometimes.

“He was talking really fast and it was the only thing I could think to do!”

“ _Just because people don’t talk at a snails pace like you doesn’t mean you have to kiss them_ ,” she says it in the same worn out way she’s told him before.

“Shut up. I just—I thought there was something more there, maybe? Like there is l-o-v-e, love.”

“ _Harry_.”

“Please, don’t say my name like I’m five years old.”

“ _Harry, I need you to listen to me. And keep in mind I’m on a phone hundreds of miles away and not there living with you, yeah_?”

“Spit it out Gemma.”

_“I just feel like you and Zayn might be in two different kinds of love.”_

“But last night—“

“ _Remember when I said listen_?” There’s a hint of a smile in her voice, “ _You said yourself he got that big thing at work and a conversation with his ex who basically told him he won this little competition and then talking to you and you went and kissed him. Do you see how all of those emotions running around at once could be confusing? Could lead to something on accident?”_

“Well, fuck, don’t hold anything back,” Harry tries to keep his tone light but there’s a knot in his throat.

_“I don’t doubt he loves you, Haz. Really.”_

“L-u-v not l-o-v-e. I get it,” he says softly.

_“I—might be wrong. You know me, I read too far into things and I’m a donut and—“_

“No, no, I know,” Harry tries to nod but it’s hard when it seems like the truth has been there all along and he’s needed his sister of all people to point it out to him.

“ _Don’t take my word, H. Ask him, okay? He’s your best friend—if you’re completely off point, he’ll tell you_ ,”

“Right. Well, thanks, I guess,” he starts playing with the pizza box again.

 _“I love you,”_ she says rather quietly, which is different for her.

“You too,” he says hanging up and dropping his head forward on his neck.

He draws invisible lines on the counter with his fingertip. He feels _empty._ It’s possibly the worst feeling to go from floating in his Zayn bubble to a complete free fall with no guaranteed landing.

It took him awhile to figure it all out but the last couple of days he’s sworn there was something more—something bigger than just friends. The things is, he sees exactly what Gemma was saying. Their emotions getting ahead of them before their brains could catch up—creating a disoriented reality for the night.

If he’d just let Zayn talk instead of kissing him, he’d know for sure. But this is his problem; this is what he does. He gets too excited to wait for details just wants to feel someone’s lips on his or their smile against his skin. It’s the same story, as always, except this time—this time it mattered.

He grabs the pizza box and shoves it in the already full garbage before pulling out the bag completely and going to take it to the dumpster, leaving the door cracked as he leaves.

It’s been in front of him all this time and he proved it yet again—he’s not capable of more than one night.

He can’t remember anything that has ever stung so badly.

++

Zayn had been lying in Harry’s bed wondering where he was when he heard the slow sounds of his voice in the kitchen—spelling words like spelling bee. He’d found himself smiling listening to the low murmur of his voice but sitting up when he heard the front door open.

He pulls himself from the bed not bothering with any clothes besides Harry’s sweats that are too long as it is and tucked under his heels. Before he can register the emptiness of the kitchen the door swings open and Harry walks in wearing a pair of his own sweats with his hair pulled back in a bun, eyes trained on the ground.

“Morning,” Zayn watches carefully as Harry jumps; the same way as when he gets lost in his thoughts or weighed down with coursework.

“Hey,” he offers a half-smile, which wasn’t at all what Zayn had expected.

For one, he thought Harry would be eating breakfast and he could sit next to him as he told him what he was thinking—it could be an ode to the day they started the fake boyfriend game.

Instead, Harry is standing in the middle of the room without looking at Zayn.

“I—“ Zayn starts at the same time Harry says something else, “Oh, go ahead, Haz,” he says and _shit_ why is this so awkward all of a sudden.

“Oh, I just was gonna say I hope Conor heard us last night. That’d be, uh, good, you know,” Harry’s looking towards Zayn but more at his ear rather than his eyes. It’s what Zayn used to do during presentations at school, the illusion of eye contact.

“Why would that be good?” Zayn takes a purposeful step to side falling into Harry’s eye line.

“Like, I know you said he thinks we’re happy and stuff but I still don’t want him to think he’s better than you or whatever. So, it’s good like that.”

Zayn takes a tentative step towards Harry, confused now by what happened to the Harry he had last night. This shy, embarrassed version is not one he’s seen before. He looks away from Zayn then, setting his jaw and blinking quickly.

“Right, um, good to keep it up, then,” as the words leave his mouth his stomach sinks. It’s not what he wants to say at all and as Harry walks out of the room without looking up there’s a something like a fist clenching around his heart.

So, that’s it, then. There was nothing more there than one night and pretending to be something bigger than best friends. And Zayn never got the chance to say the things he’d been waiting to.

And—ah, fuck it.

He’s moving down the hall after Harry before he can stop himself, hoping he doesn’t trip over the too big sweats.

“Harry, hang on.”

He stops and looks over his shoulder at Zayn before turning to face him. His eyes are wide and round but he looks defeated. Looking at Zayn like he can’t take anything more. It’s the way he’s never looked at him before, the way he never wants him to again.

“I, uh, don’t think I can do this anymore,” Zayn goes to run his hand through his hair before remembering he’s pulled it back and tugging on his earring instead.

Harry simply nods without looking at him, more like he’d been expecting this than anything, “We couldn’t go on pretending forever. I get it.” His voice is syrupy thick like when he’s drunk but there’s a tinge of something else there too.

“No, no, that’s the thing,” he wants to grab Harry and force him to look at him, “I don’t want to pretend.”

“I get it Zayn, just friends, I get it, alright?” His voice snaps as he finally meets Zayn’s eyes, the hard set of the green unfamiliar.

“Babe, no,” he moves closer to Harry finally, grabs at the ring around his neck. He didn’t expect it this. To have such an event of telling Harry he wanted more.

“What Zayn?” his voice is flat.

Zayn feels like he’s losing Harry even as he’s standing in front of him, “I don’t want to pretend because I want to be with you for real. Like, proper boyfriends if that’s what it takes.”

“I—uh, what?” Harry takes a step back away from his doorway, “I didn’t expect you to say that.”

Zayn smiles slowly but there’s still something jumping in his stomach because Harry has yet to crack a smile. “It’s been here the whole time. You. Right in front of my face—you’re the one who I want to call as soon as something big happens, you know? The one who’ll drag me around a club for hours waiting for your favorite song to finally play. You, who only smokes when you’re drunk and prefers if it’s coming from my lips; you, who was trying so hard to be a good boyfriend you were getting cues from romance novels. Like giving blow jobs to breadsticks,” Harry smirks and it’s like a rope around Zayn’s heart breaks, his heartbeat picking up, “and giving me your ring. Which was so dumb but I’ve still worn it almost everyday since because it’s like a good luck charm. And it’s, like, whatever you said about having a little piece of you with me? I want that--A little piece, all the big pieces too for that matter. It’s you, Harry. All this time we’ve been pretending but I’ve never felt something so real.”

When he finishes he wipes his hands down the front of his—Harry’s—pants and swallows. That’s it. It’s all out there. Zayn’s biggest weakness is wearing his heart on his sleeve but maybe, this time it’ll finally be a safe landing.

“You—I,” Harry’s lost for words stuttering and touching his chest and then his arms and his hair but his eyes never leave Zayn’s. “No one has ever, ever said something like that to me. I don’t know what to do.”

“You could probably stop looking like you’re trying to climb out of your own skin?” Zayn suggests curling his fingers into his palms.

“What? Oh! No, no, that’s not—no,” he moves fully into the hallway pacing towards Louis room and back towards Zayn. “Um, okay, so Gemma always told me love is really quiet, right? Like, there aren’t any flashing lights or lightening or whatever and I was always so scared I was going to miss out on finding the right person, you know? Because I like it when things are obvious, big bold spots of color and all that. But then, um, I started to realize maybe love isn’t as quiet as it is small, you know?”

He’s still walking in tight lines back and forth and Zayn’s taken to staring at his face rather than his dizzying feet.

“Like it’s all the little things. You know, when someone makes your skin kind of fizzy when they touch you and they make you laugh so hard you’re probably going to choke on it one day. And they look out for you even if it’s just holding your hand when you’re drunk or staying up while you work or whatever. Like, that and a million other little things. And then, you know, you start to add all those millions little things together and it’s a big thing—the biggest thing. You kind of realize you’re in love, I guess? Like, you’re right here in front of me and it took me this long to realize I’ve fallen in love with you. No flashing lights or big arrows—just you and me.”

Somewhere in the middle, Zayn’s jaw dropped open as he stares at Harry who has finally stopped pacing.

“Was that—I know that was like a lot. I’ve always thought it’d be cool to make a big speech like that but I never thought I’d have a reason to until now, you know?” He’s looking everywhere but at Zayn and its all Zayn can do to walk rather than run over to him and grab his face, tilting it down to his.

He kisses Harry, slow and sweet, licks his tongue into his mouth gently before biting down on his lip and tugging on his hair—just on the right side of pulling. Harry chokes over a sound as he starts to push Zayn back towards his room, tripping over stray clothes until they’re sprawled on the ground, Harry pinning Zayn to the ground as he licks and suck against his neck. In a sprawl of clothes, tongues and low sounds Zayn blows Harry there on his bedroom floor before Harry returns the favor with his hands and fingers making Zayn’s back bow off the floor with a slew of whimpered sounds and _Harry, fuck, fuck, as_ he comes.

When they start to breathe again they climb up into Harry’s bed with neither one willing to untangle as they laugh against each other’s lips until Harry has a burn from Zayn’s scruff.

“Harry Styles,” Zayn says when they’re propped on the pillows playing with each other’s fingers and sharing slow, lazy kisses.

“Yes, Zayn Malik?”

“Will you be my for real boyfriend?”

“Uh,” Harry pretends to consider before laughing instead and kissing Zayn until neither one of them is breathing correctly again, “Yes,” he finishes with a press of his lips to Zayn’s nose.

“You’re sappy,” Zayn pokes his belly as Harry rests his head on his shoulder.

“You’re the one wearing my ring like a necklace,” Harry says dragging the backs of his fingers over Zayn’s ribs.

Zayn pauses and then grabs his hand and slides cool metal on his middle finger before bringing his hand up to his lips and kissing the backs of his fingers.

“What’s this?” Harry holds up his hand, Zayn’s dark silver skull ring standing out next to his silver ring with teal detailing. “We’re not engaged, Zayn,” Harry repeats the words from outside Conor’s door nearly two months before.

“It’s like, boyfriends, yeah?” Zayn laughs—the same exact words Harry said when he threw the necklace over his head with the unknowing request of becoming something more than pretend.

They jump when they hear the front door slam and glance at each other before laughing when Louis starts muttering angrily.

“Ah, well, look at you,” he says appearing in front of Harry’s door and leaning against the doorway, “Look. At. You.” he punctuates the words by throwing Zayn and Harry’s clothes from the kitchen and hallway into the room.

Somewhere along the way they’ve all lost the will to be embarrassed laughing instead as the clothes fly through the air, Zayn’s jeans landing on the bed.

“Now, tell me, is this because you’ve finally got your heads out of your asses or did you shoot a pretend porno in our apartment to prove you’re just friends?”

“Louis,” Harry and Zayn’s voices come together as one as Harry shoots him the middle finger from where he’s laying.

“Hold the phone, Harry Styles, that’s not your ring,” Louis raises his eyebrows, “Boyfriend rings? I think I could puke.”

“Bathroom’s around the corner,” Zayn smirks propping himself up on his elbow to see over Harry.

“Snarky, Z. Anyways is anyone going to ask me where I’ve been?”

“Where you been, Lou?” Harry’s the one to ask, glancing up at Zayn when he rests his chin on his shoulder.

“I’ve been seeing a perfectly lovely girl for, oh, about two months now.”

“Really?” It’s Zayn with his eyebrows shooting up in surprise.

“Yeah and you two were too busy being in fucking denial to even notice so I also officially hate you.”

“Ah, that’s nice and light hearted,” Harry grins at him.

“You can make it up to me by joining me for baby shower cupcakes,” he pushes back from the door, “and then by explaining why we have baby shower cupcakes in the kitchen,” he throws back over his shoulder.

“It was supposed to be Batman,” Harry yells after him and then twisting to face Zayn, “It was supposed to be Batman, Zaynie, to celebrate. It wasn’t supposed to be a baby shower.”

“I—well I’m not going to say I knew that because I had no fucking clue but I love you just the same,” Zayn smiles into the words leaning forward to kiss Harry again, kissing him like he just may never get enough of his taste on his tongue.

“Literally get off of each other and get out here, jesus,” Louis screams from the kitchen and they laugh against each others lips before hauling themselves out of bed and stumbling around for clothes in Harry’s room, kissing each other no less than seven times before they make it to the kitchen.

///

_3  M O N T H S  L A T E R_

“Get the fuck up.” Each word is punctuated with a harsh kick on Zayn’s door and Louis’ piercing voice, “I don’t want to come in there but I will if I have to.”

Zayn mumbles incoherently as he hears Louis footsteps fade back into the kitchen and his voice take on a different tone completely. Probably talking to Anna—the girl from the night in the club before everything started. Anna—who is soft-spoken and a different kind of funny than Lou; who sits and talks with Zayn about art and does yoga with Harry when no one else will; who they sometimes threaten to replace Louis permanently with—especially on the mornings where he pounds down the door trying to wake them up.

It’s a morning where Zayn and Harry barely want to move let alone separate from being twisted around each other; mostly because last night was one of those nights that are becoming increasingly common in their relationship.

A night where Zayn woke up just after three wanting nothing more than every inch of Harry. Curling tighter around him and waking him up with licks and bites on his neck, moving down his body and pulling his half-hard cock in his mouth until Harry woke up squirming, twisting his fingers in Zayn’s hair. Tugging on the loose strands because he’s learned Zayn likes it as much as he does.

And when he was awake enough, Harry didn’t think about how it was three in the morning just _ZaynZaynZayn_ as he rolled to push Zayn underneath him. Pulling at his lips with his teeth, touching every inch of his skin in the way he’s become an expert; kissing, licking and biting until Zayn was a mix between smiling and whining for more from Harry.

Of course Harry obliged with more because he still can’t resist Zayn, fucking him with his thighs pressed back against his chest making his eyes rolled back into his head. Kissing him until he didn’t just look like the cool kid with tattoos and an earring but he looked like Harry’s. He jerked Zayn off with spit and pre come only to watch him fall apart under him, his forehead tense before melting. Harry came to the sound of Zayn’s choked gasps and lights behind his eyelids. And then, they collapsed on each other until every inch of their skin was touching, soft kisses and slow smiles until they fell asleep all over again.

They never regret their three a.m. antics until Louis is pounding on the door in the morning.

“Zaynie, no,” Harry pouts into the pillow when Zayn’s the first to move, unwrapping his body from Harry’s.

He’s presenting the next part of his series today—the heart of a street artist. Just last night he gave Harry a variation of the final piece but of his own heart. He thought Harry was going to cry right then when he spotted himself in the anatomical drawing filled with the things Zayn loves. [Zayn whacked him with the drawing, _Where’d you think you’d be? My ass?_ which resulted in a cheeky game of chase and Harry pinned against the wall as Zayn devoured him.]

“Up, love,” Zayn pats Harry’s bum and he wiggles against him without lifting his face, “C’mon babe,” he kisses his shoulder rolling off of him, “Come eat breakfast.”

Harry is presenting his final thesis this afternoon—finally. He’s been buzzing about it all week with the kind of nervous excitement Zayn kisses away. It’s the same as its always been except he can use his lips now rather than playing with Harry’s hair to calm him down.

Harry crawls off the bed and plops on the floor when he hears Zayn moving around the room and pulls on his sweats and white tee shirt from the night before.

“M’so tired,” he mumbles sitting cross-legged on the floor rubbing at his eyes, “Your horny ass keepin’ me up all hours of the night.”

“Fuck you,” Zayn says twisting his hair up in a knot, “You loved it.”

Harry can’t deny it so he gets up and kisses Zayn instead before heading for the kitchen.

“Morning,” Harry says to the room as Zayn comes in behind him.

“Ah, fuck, who are you people these days?” Louis shakes his head as he tears off a bite of toast with his teeth.

“What?” Zayn asks watching Harry reach for bowls from the cupboard, his shirt lifting so Zayn can see the deep nail marks on his lower back. Zayn’s nail marks.

“You’re wearing the exact same fucking thing,” he gestures between them and Harry sets the bowls down to look at Zayn with a smirk, “Black sweats, pretty sure they’re the same brand, white t-shirts and your hair—you both have goddamn buns. Stop staring at each other like that in the kitchen. Fuck. You’re like those heart-eye emojis in human form. Hello? Is anyone listening to me?”

“I am,” Anna offers with a smile distracting Louis from Zayn and Harry grinning at each other like idiots and then kissing in the corner of the kitchen with Harry pressed back on the counter.

They were blind to the happiness in front of their faces for too long and now they’ve made it their mission to make up for the lost time, even to the tune of Louis’ constant teasing.

“Love you,” Harry mumbles against Zayn’s lips as he bite softly on his bottom lip—Louis telling a story loudly at the table, and Zayn can’t help but grin. Can’t help but whisper it back against the corner of Harry’s mouth, “Love you, Haz.”

**Author's Note:**

> [Tumblr](http://www.daisyharry.tumblr.com)


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